Former Philly Artist Pens Grindr Opera

Erik Ransom has already scored a literary agent with GRINDR: The Opera, and he hopes to stage it off-Broadway this fall.

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No, it’s not Verdi, but the plot of GRINDR: The Opera reads like something you’d find staged at Opera Philadelphia or The Met (and we think that iPhones would be allowed throughout the performance). From the synopsis:

We meet GRINDR, a mythical siren from remote antiquity who has been awoken from her millennial slumber by technology. Her power, which is derived from human lust, is exhibited as she manipulates her gay devotees in a soaring soprano…GRINDR: The Opera is entirely sung-through and intended to be staged with a cast of five actors: The four men and the Siren, GRINDR, who is intended to be a masked man in drag.

With arias titled “Cum Dumpster” and “Man Hunt,” this clearly isn’t your grandmother’s opera. Written by local composer Erik Ransom, who used to perform with Philly’s BRAT Productions and had his work Coming: A Rock Musical of Biblical Proportions staged at the Prince Music Theater (when they actually produced their own works) back in 2011. Today, Ransom—who was born in New Jersey, but calls Philly the birthplace of his career—announced via Facebook that the GRINDR work landed him a literary agent with Abrams Artists. We asked him if that meant we’d be seeing it on a big stage sometime soon, and he says “we’re shooting for an off-Broadway run in the fall.”

Recently, the opera had a staged reading in New York City, hosted by the Village People’s Randy Jones (say what?). You can check out some of the songs via clips below, and, if you dare to find out more about the score and the opera, check out their official website here.