The Golden Cage

An Original 2-Person Musical by Deborah Henson-Conant

The Characters | Script & Music | Artist Illustrations

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A world-weary birdman and the ultimate diva meet atop a 500,000-foot-granite cliff and wage a deadly battle of wills over a golden cage – a battle that will destroy them … or set them free.

The Characters

ALPHEA J. SIMPSON-HUGHES is stuck big-time. She's a melodramatic Diva who's imprisoned in a golden cage on top of a remote cliff in the middle of nowhere and can’t remember how she got here. The cage is filled with props, costumes and odd collections.

She changes her costume based on who she thinks she is in the moment.

VOICE RANGE: Soprano/Mezzo (or Tenor/Baritone if played by a man); operatic range (for opera parody only); legitimate voice

BORIS ORIDNIKOV SLEPNIC O'HARA is lost. He's a birdman who's searched the world for the mythic resting place of ancient birdman lore, the legendary "Golden Cage," - but he's never been able to find it ... until now. He's energetic, enthusiastic, scheming and passionate about what he wants.

VOICE RANGE: Tenor/Baritone or Mezzo (if played by a woman)

The illustrations are by artist Ellen Lebow.

Below are Teresa Winner Blume and Bob DeVivo in recent workshop reading of the show.

Alphea & Boris in 2014

Below Tim Maurice, Pianist & Music Director, Teresa Blume as Alphea and Bob DeVivo as Boris and composer/playwrite Deborah Henson-Conant.

2014-GoldenCage-Team

Video Excerpt: "Alphea's Story"

One of the more recent additions to the show is "Alphea's Story" which was recorded in 2016. Here's a video of Teresa Winner Blume recording it at Straight Up Studios in Arlington, MA with Tim Maurice on Piano and Larry Luddecke, engineer. (If you don't see the video below, try linking to it on YouTube)

The Script

If you're interested in producing or sponsoring the show and want to see the most recent script, email the playwrite/composer.

The Music

These are exerpted songs from "The Golden Cage." If you're following along with the script, musical is mostly sung and most of the dialog is underscored - but I've tried to remove most of the dialog, intros and underscored spoken sections in these excerpts to make it easier to jump right to the songs.

Artist's Original Illustrations

by Ellen Lebow

Whenever I write a story or musical I try to find an artist to illustrate it, and artist Ellen Lebow created these drawings for me.