The Art of Adaptations

Name: The Art of Adaptations
Start: 2026-09-08T18:00:00-06:00
End: 2026-09-08T20:00:00-06:00
Location: Wheatgrass Books

Join us for a conversation about The Art of Adaptions!

Elk River Arts and Lectures (ERAL), Livingston Fringe Festival, and Opera Montana present a conversation between makers about The Art of Adaptations. Featuring Kelley Rourke and Isabel Shaida, this free conversation will explore questions including: Why do we adapt works? What does a good adaptation do? All are welcome on Tuesday, September 8 at 6 p.m. at Wheatgrass Books.

Kelley Rourke is a librettist, translator, and dramaturg. She has collaborated with composers including John Glover, Laura Karpman, Ben Moore, Kenji Oh, Zach Redler, Kamala Sankaram, Christopher Tin, and Wang Lu on new operas. Her modern English adaptations of numerous standard and not-so-standard operas have been hailed as “crackingly witty” (The Independent, London) and “remarkably well wedded to the music and versification in arias” (New York Times). She has written libretti for four youth operas, with performances across the country. She is the 2024 recipient of OPERA America’s Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, and she has received two commissioning grants from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Isabel Shaida is a theater maker in Bozeman, MT. She devises original, ensemble-driven projects and works as a movement director and teaching artist. She trains in The Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Mary Overlie’s Six Viewpoints and has studied developmental movement, somatic practice, Grotowski-style training, and Laban movement. Isabel’s most recent work, Kafka’s Monkey – an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story, ‘a report to an academy’ – premiered at Tinworks Art last fall and will be performed again in March. Isabel has also created works with Nervous Theatre (Dancing Animals, Chalk Circle, A Marvelous Party) and teaches movement in Bozeman, where she has performed and created productions across the valley (including Late, A Cowboy Song, Stand Stark Still, My Barking Dog). She has performed with Monica Bill Barnes & Company (Days Go By, It’s 3:07 Again), Double Edge Theatre (The Odyssey) and Migration Theory (Open House). isabelshaida.com

Co-founded in 2025 by Tessa Welsch and Kate Britton, Livingston Fringe Festival is a theatre festival featuring mostly new works showcasing Montana artists and performers. This year’s festival includes sixteen productions and events at nine locations.

Founded in 1979, Opera Montana is Montana’s first professional opera company. From its early days presenting one grand opera per year, Opera Montana has grown to present two operas and one musical theatre production each season.

ERAL is Park County’s mainstay literary arts organization. Founded in 2013, ERAL aims to honor our literary heritage while inspiring a new generation of writers. For more information, email director@elkriverarts.org or call (406) 529-1682.