The Ghost of Loralie Sharron

Greetings & welcome to my proposal for a short contemporary operetta inspired by a haunting I experienced in Philadelphia 2017.

Thanks to the Bearded Ladies Cabaret for inviting me to participate in their Follicle artist fellowship, a program that enables artists to start a project or idea. This website is a presentation of my proposal for the Operetta; its treatment, synopsis, and samples of music.

Thank you

DD

Plot:

Loralie Sharon, a great American singer passes into the the ether of purgatory. She haunts her childhood home, but in time discovers a way to return to the land of the living. 

Synopsis

Loralie Sharron is a Diva amongst divas. Her voice took her from poverty to stardom and now she fills concert halls all over the world. On an unsuspecting, rainy night, her driver loses control of the car, and in a flash, it swerves off the cliff of Kelly Drive and into rushing waves of the Schuylkill River. However, the next day she awakes and remembers nothing about the car falling into the river. She finds herself in her childhood home, dressed in an old nightgown, all by herself. Unable to completely recall how she got there, she soon discovers that what seems like the home of her childhood is in fact, her purgatory. Unable to escape the house, now abandoned for decades, she lives her afterlife alone until a young woman, Candice Hurnton Blythe, buys the house and decides to turn the house into a museum dedicated to the legacy of Loralie Sharron.

Loralie watches as Candice fixes the house and renovates the space. Loralie is fixated on her and grows to detest her. She believes Candice is tarnishing her legacy, and creating a mockery of her, trying to live in her shadow as Candice wears Loralie’s dresses, plays Loralie’s records, and adorns herself with Loralie’s jewels. Candice is also offering guest misinformation about Loralie’s past, twisting stories about her and painting a picture of a Loralie as a Diva who was both groundbreaking but also a childish brute. In time this rage becomes greater and she discovers that she can move objects in the house. She then realizes that she can do more than move objects, but can speak to Candice and be heard. It is in the final scene, that the ghost of Loralie possesses the body of Candice and escapes her purgatory.

Songs

This is My House

This is my house

My childhood home

Why is it so quiet here

I find myself moving from room to room

Searching for anyone

My God why am I here

How did I get here

Long ago I was on stage

Clinging to my nerves

Singing for the world

Singing for the lord, my lord,

They loved me, they loved me, they want me

My God why am I here

How did I get here

Is this a dream?

Is my mama here

Is papa here?

Mama, Papa

Mama, Papa I am here! 

I am here!

Mama I Miss You

Listen to my Words