Animal Wisdom - Feature film adaptation
American Conservatory Theater and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company present
The Bushwick Starr’s production of
ANIMAL WISDOM
by Heather Christian
Produced in association with Matt Ross, Madeleine Foster Bersin, Outskirt Media, and The Bushwick Starr.
Film Directed by Amber McGinnis | Stage Direction by Emilyn Kowaleski
Production Design by Christopher Bowser | Costume Design by Heather McDevitt Barton | Director of Photography Aiden Korotkin
Edited by Rachel Pearl | Score Mix and Music Editor Brian Bender | Percussion Design by Eric Farber | Music Direction by Heather Christian
Featuring Heather Christian, Sasha Brown, Eric Farber, B.E. Farrow, & Maya Sharpe
Made in collaboration with and orchestrated by Heather Christian, Sasha Brown, Fred Epstein, Eric Farber, & Maya Sharpe
Do you believe in ghosts? Take a virtual front row seat for this original film of the acclaimed musical séance, Animal Wisdom, where singer-songwriter-soothsayer Heather Christian lays to rest the souls that haunt her. Christian shapeshifts between rock star, folklorist and high priestess as she conjures a constellation of souls in an effort to confront her family’s mythologies.
With raucous, ferocious music that fuses blues, gospel and folk, Heather Christian invites you to raise a glass to the unseen forces that shape our lives. Adapted from the stage production that had a sold-out and acclaimed run at The Bushwick Starr, Animal Wisdom offers a transporting experience where a concert becomes a mass, and a mass becomes a séance, all in your living room.
"Sinewed with vivid portraits of the quirky deceased, and ending with a gospel-flavored requiem mass, this remarkable show acknowledges mortality, but does so with ecstatic liveliness. The film’s visual style upholds that feat. . . It’s as if place, camera cuts and angles, music, acting and digital technology have fused into a virtual Ouija board for artistic communion."
