L’ELISIR D’AMORE

Director’s Note:

It’s been such a joy to join this wonderful collective of artists and a privilege to direct the company’s first in-person, full show in several years—and this couldn’t be a better show to celebrate the long-awaited return! The silly antics and sometimes ridiculous circumstances of Elixir are a lighthearted (yet fashionable) garment, worn over highly relatable relationship struggles and accessorized with booze. Even without the setting updated to the 90s, it’s ridiculously easy to identify with the characters.

Just like them, we recklessly enter relationships. We push potential partners away until we see them in a different light. Or we chase after someone who isn’t interested or, most common of all, imbibe with liquid courage for luck. We rely on ritual, superstitions, and substances to momentarily relieve ourselves of the uncomfortable responsibility for our own happiness. Did you wear your lucky underwear to that interview you nailed? Knock on wood after a bold claim that proved true? Or take a shot before that successful first date? Sometimes it even works. But when Adina chooses to risk it and ‘make her own luck’ and Nemorino chooses to stand by his boundaries, it’s like lightning in a bottle and far more potent than any ‘elixir.’ I hope that we, like them, embrace the courage to face our own egos and fears. But if we’re not quite there yet, there’s nothing wrong with a sip of courage to help us along the way.