How do you spot a hero?
Desperate to cope with the present-day news cycle, (UN)SUNG’s Anonymous Host summons women from the past to share how they put out the dumpster fires of their own time. (UN)SUNG invites you to watch the sparks fly as Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, Victoria Woodhull, and several surprise guests sing about the seminal moments of their lives — and duel over the right way to get things done.
A full-length one-act with simple production values; cabaret-style with a generous dose of magical realism. Like (but also unlike) Top Girls, Follies, Gloria: A Life, Vagina Monologues, Working, Songs for a New World.
Cast of 6 women (including singing pianist),
expandable to 10+ for colleges & conservatories.
4 songs from (Un)Sung.
Text and Music by Nat & Kat
We are Nat and Kat. We rhyme.
In our works for the stage and beyond, we leverage the combined power of words and music as the water we can personally throw on the dumpster fires of our world. We empower by telling stories filled with women and people of color – stories often inspired by real events, either previously untold or examined from a new perspective. As white women we feel it incumbent upon us to interrogate our role in the society in which we live: we believe that in deep-diving into the past with open hearts and minds, we can create art that impacts the future.
We draw lines that connect rather than divide, by using popular forms — cabaret, celebrity interviews, big band swing — as a language that can speak to people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Our secret’s in the remix: Sweethearts of Swing mashes up a traditional musical with jazz improvisation, as characters often express themselves through their instruments, and battle out their differences through dueling solos. (Un)Sung infuses a late-night cabaret show with magical realism, bringing together feminists from different centuries and backgrounds to try to fix things – or at least inspire each other. Nat & Kat’s Adventures With the Time-Traveling Piano shows two sister-entrepreneurs who fervently wish to travel into the future but keep boomeranging to the past because of unresolved issues. (There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.) The characters who fill our shows have unique points of view and defy the expectations of society. Through them we learn that the structures with which we are so familiar are not a given, and new ways of telling, leading, coexisting can be created.
It’s not so much that we’re smashing the white supremacist patriarchy as rendering it obsolete.
The through-line of our work is creating stories where rarely-heard voices sing freely — voices theater-goers didn’t know they needed. An integrated band of women swing musicians defying Jim Crow laws. A woman who ran for President in 1872. An abortion provider facing a lifetime in jail. These characters have taught us, through their drama and courage in overcoming it, that we have a choice how we look at things. We strive to pay it forward, by showing with our work that no matter how dark things may seem, it is possible to choose hope.
Leave us a voicemail: (212) 504-3046