Currently in development.

A new American musical by RYAN SCOTT OLIVER.

ROPE, commissioned by Beth Williams and Grove Entertainment, is set in New York City, 1864 and tells the story of Clay , a gang-thief determined to find life’s fortune alone; and Szajda (“Shy”), a ghostly youth with an Irish accent, blind but possessing a remarkable power. Yet they become tied at the waist with a length of rope, stuck together on a desperate quest through a war-torn America. Clinging together with this charmed rope that allows the blind Shy to see through the eyes of Clay, the two young men must escape the vicious gangs of New York and push a path into the heart of the Civil War, where they find the greatest battle of all must be between themselves, brother and brother.

The show is the second in Oliver’s “Dogs Trilogy” of folk operas about American desperation in war-time. The nearly sung-through piece follows the first musical in the trilogy, the World War II-set We Foxes.

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