SAXTONS RIVER, Vt. – The story of how a flood affects a family is told through the eyes of three storytellers in the musical “Wayward Home,” which will be performed at Main Street Arts Friday and Saturday, Apr. 13 and 14 at 7:30 p.m.
With themes that are described as “mythic, with a lot of magic and hyper-theatricality,” the two-act piece has some 20 original musical numbers, with the performers accompanying themselves on piano, guitar and banjo and moving from musician to storyteller as they tell their characters’ stories in a folksy style.
The result of an international collaboration between two friends who met in college, the show is a compilation of words and music that tells how the family deals with losing everything
Maizy Scarpa and Clara Strauch, the creators of “Wayward Home,” met as undergraduates at New York University and began work on the piece via the internet after Strauch returned home to Sweden. They had only one face-to-face working session before the show debuted in Cambridge, Mass., in 2015.
Scarpa says the piece was inspired by both Noah’s Ark and the great Johnstown, Pa., flood in 1889 that killed more than 2,200 and caused extensive damage.
“It’s how the family forms and then faces a huge loss, a disaster,” she said. “They have to figure out how they begin again.”
Set in the mid-19th century, “Wayward Home” explores how different memories of an event create different realities through the characters of Iris (Scarpa), Anna (Strauch) and Noah, played by Didrik Soderstrom.
“My mom is one of six siblings, and I remember listening to them recall things in six different ways,” explains Scarpa. “Our stake in something affects how we remember it.”
Further information about the production is available on the website waywardhome.weebly.com.
Tickets for the performance are $15 in advance and $18 at the door for adults and $10 for children 12 and younger. They can be purchased online at mainstreetarts.org or by contacting MSA at (802) 869-2960 or e-mailing info@mainstreetarts.org.
