Animal Wisdom tickets
About Animal Wisdom
Experience Heather Christian's “dazzlingly original” (Vogue) musical séance. Animal Wisdom plays at Pershing Square Signature Center as part of Signature Theatre's 35th anniversary season. A musical ritual made for sinners and saints alike, this tremendous piece of theatre is unique, moving, and gorgeous in its sweeping melodic storytelling.
Experience Animal Wisdom in New York. A journey into the haunted spaces of memory and loss, this transporting experience comes to Signature in a thrilling new production helmed by director Keenan Tyler Oliphant, diving deep into the relationship between the soul, the seen and the unseen.
With her raucous, singular music fusing blues, gospel and folk, Obie Award-winner Heather Christian invites you to pay tribute to the forces that shape our lives. A New York Times Critic's Pick that originated at the Bushwick Starr, Animal Wisdom is not to be missed.
Run time
1hr 45min. No intermission.
Categories
Start date
May 5th, 2026
End date
June 14th, 2026
Incredible performance for a deep script, one of those instances where you do not have to understand everything to feel connected to what is happening on stage. Truly great work.
A musical with incredible storytelling and extraordinary songs with a variety of Southern blues, bluegrass, and rock sensibilities. Emotional, honest, and mystical, it features one of the most surprising and unexpected moments I've ever witnessed in the theater.
This show is hard to describe but intensely moving. A profound, communal, almost spiritual experience.
Animal Wisdom cast and creative team
By: Heather Christian
Songs by: Heather Christian
Director: Keenan Tyler Oliphant
Producer: Signature Theatre
Cast list: Kenita R. Miller (as H), Emma Duncan (as H at select matinees)
Sets: Emmie Finckel
Costumes: Brenda Abbandandolo
Lighting: Masha Tsimring
Sound: Nick Kourtides
Band: El Beh (cello), Alexandra Crosby (piano), Francesca Dawis (violin), Caro Moore (percussion), Kris Saint-Louis (bass), Zack Zaromatidis (guitar)
Other info: Music direction by Alexandra Crosby
Venue
Accessibility
Wheelchair access, assisted listening devices; open caption, audio described, and ASL performances
More information about Animal Wisdom
Vogue says Animal Wisdom is a “powerful Southern gothic musical on mortality.” The magazine likewise called it “a combination of requiem mass, séance, revival meeting, metaphysical lecture, rock concert, and autobiographical one-woman (plus band and choir) show,” noting that it’s “stranger and deeper, more powerful and more haunting, than that description implies, the singular product of a dazzlingly original talent.”
Originally conceived to be performed by Heather Christian (and performed by her in its 2017 world premiere at Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn), Animal Wisdom now comes to Signature, and the redeveloped work will be brought to life by other performers in director Keenan Tyler Oliphant’s new production.
Signature's season begins and ends with Christian’s life-affirming and unclassifiable music theater works: it opens with Oratorio for Living Things before closing with Animal Wisdom. In this distinctive, charming piece, the veil is thin, the music is wild, and the spirits of memory come roaring to life.
What to watch for
- Heather Christian's podcast episode "Prime" was named by Indiewire as one of the top episodes of 2020.
- In his New York Times review, Ben Brantley called Animal Wisdom a "truly one-of-a-kind opus."
- Heather Christian is a Drama Desk and two-time time Obie Award-winning composer/librettist/performer.
- Artistic Director Emily Shooltz said in a statement, "Heather’s work expands our conception of who can find a home as a visionary artist at Signature."
Tickets
Unfortunately, tickets for this event are no longer available.
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