This August Rebecca Cuddy premieres the role Madame in Bulrusher with West Edge Opera Festival at the Scottish Rite Centre in Oakland, California. Music by Nathaniel Stookey and libretto by Eisa Davis.

Bulrusher is a coming of age story about an African-American girl growing up in Northern California’s remote Anderson Valley in 1955. Found in a basket by the river, she is raised by the local schoolteacher and has never seen anyone that looks like her until a young Black woman from Alabama comes to town. Meeting someone like herself opens a political, sexual and identity awakening within her.

Bulrusher is based on Eisa Davis’ play of the same title, short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.