Stage Review - Sally Ride (Lowbrow Opera Collective)

Stage Review - Sally Ride
Presented By: Lowbrow Opera Collective - Seattle, WA
Show Run: May 29 - June 13, 2026
Date Reviewed: Thursday, June 11, 2026 (Closing Weekend)
Run Time: 2 Hours (including at 15-minute intermission)
Reviewed by: Anna Tatelman

Opera tends to have a reputation for being an old-fashioned art form rooted in (and perhaps unyielding from) tradition, but Lowbrow Opera Collective is out to change that. This Seattle-based theatre troupe specializes in producing new works by contemporary librettists and composers, often with a queer bent, that resonate with modern audiences rather than leaving both artists and patrons yearning for something fresh. Their most recent production of the world-premiere opera Sally Ride stands as an exhilarating example of what Lowbrow Opera’s vision looks like in practice: classically trained opera artists melding with music, design elements, and themes that are innovative, heartfelt, and inclusive.

The opera Sally Ride is based on the semi-recent historical figure of the same name; Sally Ride made history as the third woman and the first American woman to visit space. With a libretto (lyrics/book) by Aiden K. Feltkamp and music by Dana Kaufman, this world-premiere opera chronicles the major public moments in Sally’s life: her first mission into space, her run-ins with paparazzi who ask sexist questions, her decision to publicly reveal the mistakes NASA made prior to the Challenger space shuttle explosion. But we also get to glimpse what Sally was like in private, primarily through the lens of Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy, a scientist and Sally’s partner for over two decades. Within the show, Tam functions as a sort of narrator, giving us a window into Sally’s longing to visit space while in college, the depth of love between the two of them that they kept a secret for Sally’s whole life, and Sally’s battle with cancer.

From a script perspective, the Sally Ride opera faces the same challenges as many biographical theatre pieces: how to craft a compelling and cohesive narrative from the marrow of someone’s real life. While many of the moments the show chooses to depict are chosen well (and beautifully rendered), the connective tissue between those moments often feels weak. Following the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, for instance, Sally sings a heart-rending song as she wrestles over whether to disclose how NASA deliberately overlooked the spaceship’s safety risks. After coming to the conclusion that “what is loyalty in the face of morality” (a brilliant lyric), Sally publicly reveals NASA’s culpability in the tragedy. Dramatically speaking, it would make sense for the following scene to be about the repercussions – whether good or bad – of Sally speaking out. Instead, we jump to a scene of Sally and Tam at a book signing. This pattern throughout the show make the book of Sally Ride feel underdeveloped as we leapfrog from one scene to the next while often lacking causality or narrative logic.

Where this debut opera shines most is its dynamic music and lyrics. This is the kind of show that has the unique power to both appeal to opera devotees and convert those of us (like yours truly) who often struggle with the art form. Never before have I wished on the drive home from an opera that I could listen to the soundtrack – that I could re-experience the beauty of what I’d just heard and dive deeper into it than my ears could process on a first listen – but that’s exactly what happened after I saw Sally Ride. I hope you will do yourself the kindness of listening to the clips available on YouTube either while or after you read this review.

Broadly speaking, the songs of Sally Ride showcase classical operatic voices infused with more modern and novel touches. The best way I can think to describe the music of the first song, for example, is to say that it feels cosmic and otherworldly, but it stays grounded because the characters express themselves using contemporary language. Some of the songs reflect more of a musical theatre influence, such as a scene when Tam and Sally – who at this point have been friends for years– find themselves alone in Tam’s house. The song begins as a sort of banter-y piece (in operatic vocal registers) as they talk about the annoying reporters following Sally around. The music slows and turns romantic, the words becoming more heartfelt, as they discuss their shared love of the natural world – then the song becomes more frantic as they both hastily veer away from their attraction to one another.

I think my favorite song happens during the book signing scene, where Sally sings with a young girl who aspires to be an astronaut about the value of working hard to achieve her dreams of reaching for the stars. Simultaneously, Tam – who Sally introduces at the signing as merely her co-author – is wrestling with her complex feelings about keeping her true relationship with Sally a secret. It leads to a song rich with contrasting emotions: flying yet feeling stuck, having what you love yet not being able to truly embrace it. Each song within Sally Ride feels rich as both a piece of music and a vehicle that grants us a deeper understanding of its characters. The music pays homage to operatic voice stylings while finding exciting ways to innovate.

Eliza K. Woodyard directs both the show and music of this Lowbrow Opera production with a great eye toward amplifying the emotional beats and finding moments of juxtaposition. As Tam sings about Sally’s legacy, for instance, we watch Sally performing exercises and stretches with increasing difficulty as her cancer steals her physical strength. The music direction complements the libretto well and pianist Sam Peters seems very attuned to the nuances each actor’s performance.

Sally Ride features a talented six-person ensemble who each have stellar voices both as individuals and as a group. Some of the most impressive singing moments were those that I imagine were also the hardest to rehearse, like the wordless harmonizing that occurs as they express their grief over the Challenger explosion, or the songs where three or more overlapping parts occur.

Lowbrow Opera double-cast the lead roles of Sally and Tam; on the night I was there, I saw Ashley Biehl as Sally and Sarah Fletcher as Tam. The chemistry between the pair was excellent: sweet, awkward, lightly spicy, and always welling with mutual respect and love. Biehl captures Sally’s depths of longing for adventure and for love with, by turns, earnest passion and conflicted despair as she faces various threats to pursuing her passions. Fletcher gives a searingly honest presentation of what it’s like to love someone from the shadows – to feel both treasured within a relationship and also stuck outside a lover’s orbit.

When it comes to production design, Lowbrow Opera Collective overall does a good job making a lot out of limited resources. The set changes a number of times, but generally features three playing spaces – one on each side and one upstage, where a rocket backdrop sits – that allow characters to occupy different locations simultaneously (set design by Ari Bell). The lights give ethereal vibes during the scenes in space, such as by slowly spinning Theatre Off Jackson’s disco ball, and feature more realistic yellows or whites when back on earth (lighting design by Trina Wright). I didn’t always feel that the scene transitions – which sometimes occurred just minutes apart from one another and often involved moving entire set pieces on/off stage – added much to the show. The transitions would have been less cumbersome if the set had been a few simple chairs and tables. That said, I appreciate the challenges of wanting to ground the audience in different specific sets while operating with minimal production resources.

Lowbrow Opera Collective’s recent world-premiere opera shows us the value of recognizing the many awe-inspiring features of the universe all around us. Through stunning songs, top-notch performances, and design elements that make the most of a small budget, Sally Ride gives a heartfelt presentation of how natural wonders require risks to see – whether that risk is working hard to fly into space or taking a chance on a love that the rest of the world may not understand – and how, although not without consequences, the risk is always worthwhile.

Sally Ride, which was presented by Lowbrow Opera Collective and ran on stage at Theatre Off Jackson, closed on June 13, but if you’d like more information on the theatre company and their upcoming shows, visit www.lowbrowoc.org/.

Photo credit: Ari Bell