Flight Lessons: A Folk Opera By Deborah Crooks

Name: Flight Lessons: A Folk Opera By Deborah Crooks
Start: 2026-04-17T19:00:00-07:00
Location: 2513 Blanding Ave, Alameda, CA, United States, California 94501

Schedule

Fri, 17 Apr, 2026 at 07:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

2513 Blanding Ave, Alameda, CA, United States, California 94501 | Alameda, CA

Based on a true story about the Peregrine Falcons and humans living at the convergence of wild and urban habitats on Oakland’s Fruitvale Bridge, Flight Lessons explores themes of home, migration, adaptation and the limits of the man-made environment.
The narrative follows an urban wildlife biologist who monitors the breeding pair of Peregrine Falcons nesting on the bridge and how their lives intersect with the human inhabitants of the neighborhood after one of the birds is shot.
Examining the crossroads of life, loss, nature and humanity, Flight Lessons asks the questions: How can we learn to value the wild and natural in an urban environment? And, how does one recover and continue after loss?
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DEBORAH CROOKS is an Alameda-based songwriter and writer who performs and records under her own name and with the band Bay Station. Her latest full-length solo release The Department of The West (2019) was described by the Rocking Magpie as “…what Americana music is all about for me; imaginative, cinematic, informative and last but not least … entertaining.”
Place-based and rooted in practice, her work is informed by studies of natural history, voice and yoga. Along with her solo musical work, she co-founded the Americana-rock band Bay Station with Kwame Copeland, co-creates The Bay Station Eagle local ‘zine and has contributed to multiple productions by Deborah Slater Dance Theater.
She began writing “Flight Lessons” — which was recently awarded a Puffin Foundation Grant — while an artist-in-residence at Chalk Hill in Healdsburg, CA.