Fellow Travelers
The West Coast premiere of the opera adaptation of Thomas Mallon’s novel Fellow Travelers, a tender love story and political thriller set in the corridors of power during the McCarthy era.
Recent college graduate Timothy Laughlin is eager to join the crusade against communism, and a chance encounter with handsome State Department official Hawkins Fuller leads to Tim’s first job—and his first love affair with a man. Drawn into a maelstrom of deceit, Tim struggles to reconcile his political convictions and his forbidden love for Fuller. The piece uses the love affair of Laughlin and Fuller to shed light on the ‘Lavender Scare’, an often-overlooked period of McCarthyism that resulted in the mass firings of suspected homosexuals from the United States government. With Senator McCarthy’s investigations into ‘sexual subversives’, Tim struggles to reconcile his political convictions, his love for God, and his love for Fuller – an entanglement that ends in a stunning act of betrayal.
Adapted by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce, Opera Parallèle and the Presidio Theatre are proud to bring this contemporary classic to the West Coast, a beautiful opera with the message that love will always flourish under persecution.
Learn more at the Opera Parallèle website.
A Premium Fellow Traveler’s Experience
Transportation, Tour, and Lavender Toast to the Presidio Theatre
For less than the cost of an Uber, make your transportation to and from the beautiful Presidio Theatre a seamless and delightful experience through a storytelling-enriched route via a luxury private bus. Led by Shawn Sprocket of Unspeakable Vice, the transport-tour will embark from (and return post-performance to) the GLBT Historical Society Museum in the Castro, taking you back in time through the Queer history of San Francisco. Arrive with ease at the Presidio Theatre for your performance, just in time for a sparkling Lavender Toast with your “fellow travelers”.
Round-trip tickets cost $35 and are available during checkout as an add-on event.
Learn more about the bus tour here.
Questions about the production?
For questions about this production, please contact Opera Parallèle at info@operaparallele.org