Jeffrey Dokken, Stephan Alexander Parker, & A Roadkill Opera at Artomatic 2020
Streamed live on Aug 15, 2020
A Roadkill Opera’s Road from Artomatic to the GRAMMYs to the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia: From Page to Fully Staged
Check out the whole Artomatic 2020 event:
Including DJ Choupin’s photos at
![Logo of Artomartic 2.0 Virtual Performance: photo of La]ura Wehrmeyer, Alan Naylor, Louie the Llama,and Christopher Dews on the set of A Roadkill Opera's world premiere performance at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Wahtington DC.](http://aroadkillopera.com/test/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/August-15-2020-at-700-PM-Jeffrey-Dokken-Stephan-Alexander-Parker-A-Roadkill-Opera-at-Artomatic-2020.jpeg)
Marketing materials for A Roadkill Opera at Artomatic 2020 (shown here) were provided by Artomatic for its 20th anniversary event. Stephan Alexander Parker’s connection with Artomatic began as an exhibitor and volunteer at Artomatic 2000. Maestro Jeffrey Dokken began his involvement when Artomatic 2012 hosted his Roadkill Opera workshop. Parker and Dokken provided artist talks at almost every Artomatic event (including Artomatic@Frederick) from 2012 on.
Many thanks to the hundred-plus people who either tuned in live for the livestream on August 15, 2020, or viewed the archived livestream (still available) in the month since it was broadcast. Extra thanks to those who shared it with their friends and those who participated in the live chat during the broadcast!
Incorporating photos and footage from live performances 1988 – 2016, with new footage contributed in August 2020 by Jeffrey Dokken, Stephan Alexander Parker, Jaylen S. Johnson, Val Rauch, Michael Thompson, Tanya Whisnant, and Christina Giles, this piece was edited by Stephan Alexander Parker. Technical direction by Ben Ganz.
A Roadkill Opera was first prototyped as a script and mockup at Artomatic 2004 and workshopped at Artomatic 2012. From Artomatic 2012 we went into the studio—the commercially released recording got the creative team invited to the GRAMMYs in 2015, where we received a surprise announcement that the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia (SONOVA) would perform it the following year.
Jeffrey Dokken conducted the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia (SONOVA) on October 21, 2016, at the James Lee Community Theater in Falls Church, Virginia; and other groups in January 2016 at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, DC; in studio recordings at Blue House Productions in Kensington, Maryland, between January and June 2013; and at Artomatic 2012 in Crystal City, Virginia, in June 2012.
Music composed by Ferdinando Paer for Leonora (1804) was repurposed by Stephan Alexander Parker for this fast, funny, 59-minute mashup of classical music and a backstage screwball comedy about the hour before the first professional gig for the rude mechanicals of an amateur improv comedy troupe, the Roadkill on A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company, in 1988 Jackson Hole, Wyoming. New interviews conducted in August 2020 are mixed with archival photos, a bit of narration over the live, October 2016 Overture, and live performance footage from all the above with footage from the March 13, 1992, Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! performance at the Pink Garter Theatre in Jackson, Wyoming.
So excited! None of this would have happened without Artomatic, SONOVA, Ed Bachtel, and Maestro Jeffrey Dokken!