FATHER LEAR Book & Lyrics by Andrea & Michael Pemberton (Professor Woland’s Black Magic Rock Show) Music by Michael Pemberton Directed by Artistic Director Elizabeth Dinkova April 22-May 8, 2027 World premiere in a co-production with Avant Bard Theatre THIS PART OF THE RUN WILL TAKE PLACE AT Gunston Arts Center, Theater 2, 2700 South Lang Street, Arlington, VA. Charismatic leader Father Lear has grown his church from a traveling music show into a major broadcast and cable network, thanks to the effort and charms of his daughters, the Lear Sisters. But as he rallies his followers to wage a spiritual battle against a demonic state and an imminent Armageddon, some begin to question if Lear’s mind is slipping. Immersed in a cult of personality against the backdrop of televangelism, this radical reimagining mirrors today’s live-streamed culture, where performance, faith, and authority blur in real time—and where collapse, like success, happens in public view. The newest creation by the team behind our award-winning musical “Professor Woland’s Black Magic Rock Show”, Father Lear is a story about inheritance—of power, belief, and damage— as new generations grapple with whether to uphold, reform, or dismantle the systems that shaped them. Centered on the sisters’ inner lives and agency, “Father Lear” reclaims their narrative from patriarchal interpretation and places them at the heart of that reckoning.
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