When We All Fall Asleep...

This seven-minute show features six tracks from her fourteen-track album, with each of the three movements having two songs in each consisting of: “you should see me in a crown,” “8,” “all the good girls go to hell,” “xanny,” “listen before i go,” and “i love you.”

We wanted this show to be loosely based upon an excerpt from an article written by Craig Jenkins and published by Vulture...

Craig writes, “I worry about people born in the 21st century. There’s something deep and dark-stirring in our collective consciousness. They’re seeing it firsthand. This decade says morality goes wherever the masses do; if they tug too hard in the wrong direction, the rest of the union gets yanked along by their preoccupations.”

“People coming of age right now are seeing hate, selfishness, and shameless, lawless grift growing new roots. They’re being bombarded with bad news at a speed that’s dizzying to process, and they live with the expectation that they’ll be transparent about their thoughts and feelings all the while. It doesn’t make sense. It requires superhuman poise and a bold belief that in spite of what ails us right now, we, as a planet, are going to be fine in the end. That they’re adapting and not despairing is astounding. ‘Gen Z’ will save the future, but only if we can get them there in one piece.”

This show imagines what could come of society if these interpretations are correct. In a time where the spread of information is so wide and fast and social expectations are ever-increasing, it’s not too farfetched that a dismal, melancholic future is near. The show idealizes this dystopia and comments on the treacherous path we follow as humans in the modern era. With technology and communications advancing at staggering speeds, what happens next? When does it become too much? If morality truly follows the majority, are our actions and advances inadvertently destroying our future? This show aims to answer those questions by using Billie’s music to set the mood and support the narrative, as her lyrics reflect the ideas we wished to explore with this production.