Breaking Open is a bold new musical by Rebecca Fishman and Evan Premo that reimagines the lives of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene through a deeply human and contemporary lens. Blending musical theater, ritual, and immersive storytelling, the work explores embodiment, devotion, grief, sexuality, power, and spiritual revelation through the interior lives of two women whose stories have been shaped for centuries by theology and archetype. Rather than offering answers, Breaking Open invites audiences into an experience of listening, intimacy, and transformation. For the first time, this special developmental presentation features material spanning the full arc of the show, with selections from both Act One and Act Two. Still evolving through performance, listening, and dialogue, Breaking Open offers audiences a rare opportunity to witness a major new work at a pivotal stage of its creation. Co-presented by the Montpelier Performing Arts Hub and Northwoods Music Collaborative.
Breaking Open includes mature themes, including sexuality, references to sexual violence, and a reexamination of Mary’s virginity. It may not be suitable for children.
Rebecca Fishman is a Los Angeles–based songwriter, vocalist, actor, and emerging musical theater writer whose work explores transformation through grief, embodiment, intimacy, and spiritual inquiry. Her songs often arise from periods of personal rupture and seek to transmute lived experience into emotional clarity, connection, and meaning.
Breaking Open is her first musical and first full-length script, for which she serves as librettist, lyricist, and co-composer. She previously co-created and performed in Rumours, a narrative-driven concert work inspired by the story and music of Fleetwood Mac that was presented in a series of sold-out performances at Largo in Los Angeles.
Drawing from a background in performance, education, collaborative art-making, and independent music, her writing centers the interior lives of women and examines the ways suffering, devotion, desire, and revelation shape human identity. Her work is grounded in emotional honesty, lyrical vulnerability, and a deep trust in the transformative power of storytelling and song.
Evan Premo is a composer, double bassist, sound artist, and interdisciplinary theater maker whose work explores the intersection of consciousness, spirituality, healing, and artistic expression. As co-creator and co-composer of Breaking Open, he brings together musical theater, ritual, improvisation, chamber music, and immersive listening experiences that invite audiences into emotional and spiritual transformation.
Premo’s work often explores themes of ancestry, revelation, grief, devotion, and human connection through sound. Previous theater works include The Diaries of Adam and Eve (after Mark Twain) and Queen Marinette, an ongoing Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaborative music theater project produced by Hogfish that explores ancestry, resistance, and cultural memory. His body of work also includes numerous song cycles and vocal chamber works blending storytelling, poetry, and contemporary composition.
His compositions have been commissioned and performed by ensembles including the Aizuri Quartet and the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra, and his performance work has been featured at Carnegie Hall and on NPR’s Performance Today. He is the Artistic Director of Northwoods Music Collaborative and founder of the genre-bending Beethoven and Banjos festival.