Experiments in Opera (EiO) will release a 10-episode serial video opera titled “Everything for Dawn.”

The series will have its one-night-only ‘Opening Night’ screening of all ten episodes at Anthology of Film Archives on October 1, 2022, after which it will stream for free on All Arts beginning October 7, 2022.

The series is a coming-of-age story set in the 1990s and relates the story of Dawn, a young woman who, after her father commits suicide, discovers a box of his paintings. The artwork gains prominence as “outsider art,” and her personal tragedy becomes public.

EiO began the series in 2018 with the plot and characters developed in EiO’s Writer’s Room, an initiative that brings together authors, playwrights, and librettists to create new operas. The release of a 10-episode series coincides with the company’s celebration of its 10th Anniversary. Over the decade, EiO produced 85 new operatic works by 55 composers.

Vocal artists featured in the series include baritones Aaron Engebreth and Joshua Conyers, mezzo-sopranos Sishel Claverie and Eliza Bonet, and sopranos Maggie Finnegan, Laura Strickling, and Meroë Khalia Adeeb.

The creative team comprises Alison Moritz (Director), Eric Thomas Payton (Director of Photography), Jean Kim (Production Designer), Stacey Boggs (Lighting Director), Jeff Cook (Sound Engineer), David Bloom (Music Director), and Travis Ford (Editor).

“Everything for Dawn” episodes are as follows. Episodes 1-3, set in 1997, take place in a suburban Detroit home, where a college-aged daughter (Dawn) and her mother (Gloria) discover a box of paintings by their recently deceased father/husband (Mac). Episodes 4-7, set in 1995, go back in time to the mental health facility that the father had been in before his death, and Episodes 8-10, set in 2001, pick up after the end of Episode 3 when the art world hails the father as a star of outsider art.