PORT(AL) by Brooklyn Youth Chorus

“A sprawling, ambitious, innovative new collaborative production” (Vogue). PORT(AL) is an epic new work charting the Brooklyn Navy Yard and a history of women’s work in New York, co-created by the GRAMMY Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus (“a mammoth choir that lends a shot of instant grandiosity to everything they touch” — Pitchfork), Jad Abumrad (Radiolab), Paola Prestini, Jessica Grindstaff, Ogemdi Ude and a chorus of 50 young singers. A mesmerizing new choral theater experience, PORT(AL) opens a hidden doorway to the past within the depths of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Ebbing, flowing, and interweaving throughout this immersive piece are the voices of the youth chorus speaking to their relationship to their very own time and place, and their future. Vividly evoking and honoring Brooklyn’s ghosts, PORT(AL) spins oral histories from recently passed figures like historian Howard Zinn and activist Clarence L. Irving, Sr. Discover the hidden depths of the Navy Yard’s past, where the trailblazing spirit of machinist and drag king Rusty Brown and the pioneering voice of mezzo soprano Eugenia Farrar surge like tidal waves. PORT(AL) is not just a performance; it’s an immersive passage through time, where the boundaries between eras dissolve and the enduring spirit of the human story sets sail. PORT(AL) was partially developed in residency at PS21 in early 2025.