Soil Beneath: An Empirical Decay

Show Info

Chesney Snow joins Pulitzer finalist and Obie-winning composer Diedre Murray for his new choreopoem commissioned by Primary Stages. SOIL BENEATH: AN EMPIRICAL DECAY is a visceral, timely, and nuanced exploration of race, class, and American political culture told through the mediums of poetry, storytelling, dance, and music.

Chesney Snow (In Transit at Primary Stages and on Broadway) is a Drama Desk winner and 3x Artist in Residence at Harvard University. Most recently, he appeared in Two River Theater’s production of Oo Bla Dee written by Regina Taylor and directed by Ruben Santiago Hudson. Composer/lyricist for the McCarter Theatre and Long Wharf Theater’s 2018 Crowns. He also appeared in McCarter Theatre’s Princeton and Slavery Plays directed by Carl Cofield. His critically acclaimed choreopoem The Unwritten Law premiered at Dixon Place in 2017. A pioneering figure in American beatbox culture, he originated the role of Boxman at Primary Stages and on Broadway in In Transit at Circle in the Square. The Primary Stages production of In Transit received more nominations than any other Off-Broadway musical of the 2010/2011 season. Snow headlined Carnegie Hall twice. He produced and starred in the music documentary American Beatboxer, which was placed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and numerous other archives throughout the United States.

Diedre Murray (composer) is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for the chamber opera Running Man, and a two-time Obie winner for creating the original story and music for Running Man and arrangements for Eli’s Comin’. In addition, she wrote the arrangements for the Tony Award-winning Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, among other works.