(Credit: © 2022 Sarah M Golonka | smg-photography)

The Broad Stage is set to present the world premiere production of “The Conference of the Birds.”

The oratorio by composer Fahad Siadat and librettist Sholeh Wolpé will take the stage on June 18 and 19, 2022 at the Santa Monica, California-based stage.

The piece is based on Sufi poet Attar’s famed text about the “journey of the soul as it seeks union with the Divine.” It will star Anne Harley as Hoopoe, Fahad Siadat as the Narrator, and Catalina Jackson-Urueña and Toppy Dringman as dancers. The HEX Ensemble will also provide soloists, performing alongside The Contemporary Choral Collective of Los Angeles.

The work will be directed and choreographed by André Mergerdichian.

“We are the birds in the story. All of us have our own ideas and ideals, our own fears and anxieties, as we hold on to our own version of the truth,” said Wolpé in an official press statement issued by The Broad Stage. “Like the birds of this story, we may take flight together, but the journey itself will be different for each of us. Attar tells us that truth is not static, and that we each tread a path according to our own capacity. It evolves as we evolve. Those who are trapped within their own dogma, clinging to hardened beliefs or faith, are deprived of the journey toward the unfathomable Divine, which Attar calls the Great Ocean.”