Our Music Theater

The Wasteland Company

(Index to our productions.)

"The theme of the Grail romance is that the land, the country, the whole territory of concern has been laid waste.  It is called a wasteland.  And what is the nature of the wasteland?  It is a land where everybody is living an inauthentic life, doing as other people do, doing as you're told, with no courage for your own life.  That is the wasteland.  And that is what T. S. Eliot meant in his poem The Wasteland. 

--Joseph Campbell

The Wasteland Company was founded in 1981 by William Osborne and Abbie Conant to develop chamber music-theater.   We have performed in over 115 European and America cities to high acclaim from both the press  and professionals.   To date the company has six full evening productions, all composed by William Osborne, four of which are for Abbie Conant.   Our goal is to go beyond opera, and achieve music theater  fully integrating music, text and acting, using themes relevant to the modern world.   A special focus of our work is the creative identity of women.  Our achievements have successfully redefined the dimensions of instrumental performance art and music theater.

We discuss our theater work in the article "Miriam and Our Theories of Chamber Music Theater." 

Below are links describing each of our programs.  Video clips, photos, and sound files are included.

Aletheia   Completed  December 2011.  Currently in production.   Premiere anticipated in September 2012.	Cybeline	Street Scene for the Last Mad Soprano	Miriam
Winnie	Rockaby	Act Without Words I	Leonore
Ohio Impromptu	Hamm	Words and Music	Alice Through the Looking-Glass
Photo Gallery