Playwright Elle Thoni (CMU Dramatic Writing) and composer Carlisle Evans-Peck (Independent Artist - Minneapolis) in collaboration with Director Kaycee Swierc, invite actors to audition for a two-day new music theater workshop for THE CO-OP WARS, a brand new musical in development. During the workshop, actors will work closely with the playwright-composer under the direction of Kaycee Swierc to workshop new song and book segments and to record some demo tracks that actors can use in their portfolios, websites, and social media. 

THE CO-OP WARS will be an energetic new musical about the explosive yet little-known history behind the Twin Cities’ thriving grocery co-ops. In 1970, a group of young revolutionaries bent on starting a non-capitalist food network began selling cheap bulk foods off a friend’s back porch in South Minneapolis. The idea caught on, but so did the attention of militant Marxists. It wasn’t long before radical ideologies clashed - literally and figuratively - over the fate of the Twin Cities’ fledgling co-op stores and the futures that they represented. In an all-out war of hippies vs. communists – which revolution won out? And what does it all mean when the cost of local, healthy food is still too high for most workers today? Straddling the co-ops of the past/present and fueled by the infectious sounds of the late 60s/early 70s counterculture, we’re excited to make THE CO-OP WARS a new musical anthem that pays homage to generations of activists at the intersection of food, labor, equity, and the dream of something better than capitalism. 

Book writer & Librettist: Elle Thoni

Composer & Librettist: Carlisle Evans-Peck

Workshop Casting & Direction: Kaycee Swierc

Workshop Dramaturg: Kristi Good

Workshop Sound Design consultation: Ray Kathryn Morgen