[working titles]: HOMO ERECTUS

The third musical from American Sing Song (A.S.S.), HOMO ERECTUS is about a man who, after the death of his husband, attempts to travel back in time to reunite with his beloved…and accidentally travels way too far back, to the Paleolithic Era.

" A.S.S. is a theatre collective of two queerdos (Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper) who write and perform epic, impossible musicals that can (and should) only exist in your mind. We’re after impossibly epic, positively filthy, and disarmingly sweet stories. We aim to create canvases in which butt jokes and earnest examination of social ills can exist on the same plane.

Homo Erectus is not JUST about gay boners; it’s also about attention. It’s our way of looking at technology addiction, our disconnection from each other, and our steady collective march into brain rot. It’s also about raising children in our broken world and the delusion/power of hope. It’s about the raw sexual power of fishing for one’s dinner. It’s about freaky ancient cave art. It mines the past and the future to illuminate the slipperiness and fragility of the present. We are leaning heavily on Bulgarian polyphonic singing as we create our new score. While our previous two musicals have been about the bops, we think this one wants to push closer to operetta. The music also feels environmental. So does the foley work. We are curious about only using organic materials to create sounds – such as twigs, flowers, rocks, and water. We’re after a singular strangeness, sadness, and slapstick madness. She is unlike anything we’ve made before and we are so excited to birth her."

–A.S.S.

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