Music For The Changing Voice was initially created by Alyssa Wright as an ArtsLocal project for Talk Is Free Theatre in 2017.  It received its world premiere with Talk Is Free Theatre as part of its 2018/19 season, with Rae Smith directing, sets and lighting by Joe Pagnan.

It is a show about finding beauty in the broken, and a voice to oppose the silence.  

"When my grandfather died, I inherited his cello – the first one I ever heard or played – which came to me shattered in many pieces, uplayable and unfixable.  Which kind of mirrors the other thing I inherited from him: the legacy of intergenerational interpersonal trauma.  

"When I brought my grandfather's broken cello to the luthier and asked him what I could do with it, he shrugged and suggested "make art" – so I've chosen to do that with the other part of my inheritance as well!"

Performing her original songs, music she was raised with, and even some tunes by the late Don Wright himself, Alyssa weaves together a tale about growing up in his musical shadow and under his silencing oppression – then eventually using the cello and the other tools she’d inherited to find her own voice, heal from the past, and turn even the most shattered bits into art.

Music For The Changing Voice explores some of the complex family dynamics that can arise around childhood sexual abuse, and gives hope and encouragement to those struggling to find their voice.  It can be performed in a professional theatre, but can easily be taken to schools, community centres, or other locations – in partnership with The Katie Project, we are hoping to help reach those who most need to hear this message.

Listen to Alyssa's pre-show interview for Rabble, "'Music For the Changing Voice' demonstrates that music can heal fractured hearts" here.

"The way you accessed your vulnerability and helplessness and brought them out as true and uncomfortable gifts for us left me breathless.  …Courage doesn’t begin to describe what you are doing — there is something visceral, humanizing, something so disastrously hopeful it should make the cynic in us go away and weep in a corner.

I do hope more people will see this.  As a theatre production, not televised or Youtubed.  One has to be there, present in your presence, in all your wonderfilled, vulnerable, and victorious glory."

– Edward St. Moritz (May, 2019)

"Having Alyssa tell her story was so powerful, seeing a person who has gone through all that she has, up there and just glowing with surety of purpose.  I was constantly being tossed back and forth between the reality of her past, and the strength and courage of her present…  Both the staging, and her brilliant musicianship created a magic that we were all privileged to have witnessed."

- B.A. (May, 2019)