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I first heard the music from Songs For A New World in 1998, when I was a college freshman studying musical theater at Tisch School for the Arts in New York City. The storylines and themes of Jason Robert Brown’s song cycle mirrored my own feelings about this new journey I had started: terribly intimidating and wildly exciting. Everything in my world seemed incredibly important and charged with the big emotions of leaving home (the “known”), and starting down my own path (the “unknown”).

Songs For A New World is about CHANGE...the pivots and the possibilities, the hurt and the growth, the ways that change and choice can bring us together or break us apart...What do we do in these moments of change? How does it feel- as an individual, a couple/family, a town, a country, a world? These are stories of discovery and connection, of the ties that bind and the cords that are cut, all the crazy influences and dreams from our past, present, and future, and the impact of cultures and society and CHOICE on our personal, intimate lives. I couldn’t help but return to these songs again in 2020, as the world around us took us down paths and faced us with choices that shattered what we thought we knew, and forced us to face many new unknowns. One of my favorite lyrics in the ‘Opening’ goes: “And you thought you knew, but you didn’t have a clue...that the surface sometimes cracks, to reveal the tracks to a New World”. 

Songs for a New World is a series of vignettes; a collection of stories that stand alone as glimpses into different lives and worlds, but that are also joined by our wonderful, common human experience. I wanted this production to highlight our changing worlds, as they always change and as they are specifically changing right now: as artists and performers, as Vermonters, as humans. I want us to share all the pains and joys we feel with our paradoxical togetherness and separateness. I wanted to clearly show my love and appreciation for both the performing arts community and the glory of nature (especially here in Vermont)- two things that play a huge role in my ability to navigate the changes and choices in my world, now and always. As you watch and listen to Songs For A New World, I hope you connect with some of the “knowns” and “unknowns” that weave their way through the show, and join us in a celebration of the ways we have choice on our paths through all of this change. 

Brita Down