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The Process Series: SUNNYLAND a rock banjo opera
February 7 @ 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Joseph Megel | 919-843-5666 | uncprocessseries@gmail.com
SUNNYLAND
a rock banjo opera
music, lyrics, and libretto by
Stephan John Meyers
February 7 & 8, 2025 @ 7:30 p.m.
Black Box Theatre at Swain Hall
Reserve tickets here.
The next offering from The Process Series, in partnership with StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, will venture into totally unexplored territory for the seventeen-year-old Series—a punk-inflected, rock banjo opera. Sunnyland, with music, lyrics, and libretto by Chatham County artist, Stephan John Meyers (a.k.a. Breadfoot) is set to become the first.
According to Process Series and StreetSigns artistic director Joseph Megel, “We often feature local artists like Stephan John Meyers, it’s our bag, but in seventeen years, we’ve never ventured into the world of a rock opera, let alone one played with a banjo. It’s a journey we’re thrilled to be embarked upon.”
Sunnyland follows a misunderstood young’un from a Small Town to the Big City. Punk rock loving, banjo slinging Gibson—bullied since before he could see the top of the fridge—finally decides it’s time to accept the invitation of his one true and good childhood friend Sasha to make his escape to the Big City, where he dreams of finding acceptance—and maybe even a taste of the big time.
Stephan John Meyers is a veteran independent musician, songwriter, and performer who has shared the stage with acts as diverse as the Avett Brothers, Green Day, and Regina Spektor. SUNNYLAND – A Rock Banjo Opera, is Meyers’s first “honest to goodness attempt at writing for musical theater.” According to Meyers, “The endeavor in part was sparked by fans’ remarks suggesting my live solo performances seemed somehow like a cross between Shel Silverstein and Roger Miller.” Also at play in this work, beyond Meyers’s lifelong affection for musicals, is his time spent growing up in a small, semi-rural town and his later life, living and pursuing his own musical dreams, in the Big Apple.
In the wake of a Chatham Arts Council sponsored JumpStart performance, StreetSigns dramaturg Elisabeth Lewis Corley and Megel were struck both by the intensity of the
performance and the unusual musical ideas. Megel notes, “When we heard Stephan play a couple of numbers from Sunnyland in Pittsboro, we knew that the Process Series and StreetSigns needed to support his journey making this piece. The music is haunting, and the concept was clearly something we had never encountered before. We just wanted to provide a place for Sunnyland to find its legs.”
Local musicians Rick Keena, on six-string banjo, and Daniel Hall, on drums, join the performance. Daniel Hall is a founding member of The Old Ceremony and toured with Chatham County Line. The cast features local actor/singers Danny Grewen and Taz Halloween. They are joined by UNC students Kang Xona Mwa, Elena Holder, Gabriela Hinkle, and Buck Thornton.
Development of Sunnyland has been supported by the Chatham Arts Council; the NC Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts; and StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance.
About the Artist
Stephan John Meyers (a.k.a.Breadfoot) likes his eggs sunny up and his whiskey neat. London Time Out describes his live performance as full of “…gritty guitar picking and homespun wisdom” and calls him “a raconteur par excellence.” An independent musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and one-man band originally from Cleveland, Ohio and now based in Chatham County, North Carolina, Meyers played with numerous rock-n-roll bands—from Gill, in Brooklyn, to Liquor Bike out of Baltimore—and did open mics at the Raven on Avenue A. He has released multiple albums, including four as Breadfoot. Of his fourth Breadfoot album, Salvatella, babysue writes, “We’re always on a search for simplicity and purity in music . . . and in Breadfoot we find both,” calling it “a real cool slice of underground Americana folk/pop played with class, style, and a whole helluva lot of personality.”
Breadfoot’s music has been featured in Roadtrip Nation on PBS, in the documentaries 10 MPH and Abandoned, and in the comedy The Karaoke Brothers.
Our Sponsors
Our 17th season is based in the Department of Communication, supported by StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, and is co-sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Asian American Center, and these UNC Departments and Programs: American Studies, Art and Art History, Communication, Creative Writing, Dramatic Art, English and Comparative Literature, Music, and Philosophy.
About the Process Series
Dedicated to the development of new and significant works in the performing arts, The Process Series features professionally mounted, developmental presentations of new works in progress. The mission of the Series is to illuminate the ways in which artistic ideas take form, examine the creative process, and offer audiences the opportunity to follow artists and performers as they explore and discover. Immediately following each performance, we ask our audiences to join in the creative process, providing feedback critical to the development of the work as it moves forward. Most performances are free and open to the public.
For more information, contact Artistic Director Joseph Megel at megel@email.unc.edu, or visit the following links: Website, Facebook, Make a Donation.