Darkly funny, wildly imagined, and impossible to look away from

A carousel rolls into a decaying town. It promises to cure every ailment - pain, grief, the ache of just getting by. The town says yes. Then the price goes up.

Scottish Opera and Opera Ventures Productions reunites the creative forces behind Breaking the Waves - Grammy-nominated composer Missy Mazzoli and Pulitzer-winning writer Royce Vavrek and Tony award-winning director Tom Morris (War Horse) - as they set Pulitzer-winning novelist Karen Russell's loose reimagining of Franz Kafka, updating the story for the opioid crisis that has gripped too many communities. 

For Mazzoli and Vavrek, these issues are not just ripped from headlines; both have lost family to addiction. They now build a fable out of that grief - populated by singing sheep, talking dogs, and a showman selling salvation by the ride.