Trip Details

Based on a true story about Peregrine Falcons and humans living at the intersection of wild and urban habitats, "Flight Lessons" is a two-act, six-character, 17-song folk opera exploring themes of home, adaptation, recovery and intra and interspecies relationships in an urban environment. The narrative-in-song follows an urban wildlife biologist (“Lenny”), who monitors the lives of a breeding pair of once-endangered Peregrine Falcons (“Haya” and her mate “Hiko) who nest on a bridge between two cities, and how their lives intersect with each other and those of the other human (“Daniel”, a subsistence fisherman), and falcon inhabitants (“Evvie,” a floater falcon) of the neighborhood after Haya is shot by a pigeon fancier (“Hank”). When Haya goes into a long-term rehabilitation center, Hiko returns to the nest territory and eventually chooses a new mate in Evvie.

Drawing on the author/composer Deborah Crooks's studies of natural history and experiences with raptor conservation, the story both celebrates the wonder of the avian world while highlighting the threats to its existence.