A Prize for Every Player is a new opera adapted from a short story of the same name by the sharp and hilarious author A.M. Homes. In collaboration with composer Aaron Siegel, the opera is in development as a site-specific work, with performers walking around a real ‘everything’ store engaging in dialogue as they walk and experiencing emotional arias amidst the aisles of real goods with real shoppers looking on in amazement.
Tom and Jane Sanford take their two kids, Billy and Tilda, to the local big box store for their weekly Sunday shop. The Sanford’s have an ongoing family game where they split into teams, each team has a list of items and the goal is to see which team can get the items fastest and for the lowest price. But today is no ordinary day. The store is full of surprises, from the mundane to the life changing and the personal to the political. Their adventure ends with an unexpected family celebration that involves everyone in the store but as they get into their car to leave, they realize they forgot the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner.
Siegel and Homes were in residence at Princeton University in the spring of 2023 to develop early prototypes of the opera and worked with students to provide a proof-of-concept for this ambitious vision.