nada, the short opera I wrote with composer Tze Yeung Ho for the Strange Trace Opera Company’s Stencils Opera Festival, premiered November 2022. Check out the trailer here.

nada is inspired by Bluma Zeigarnik’s theory of “Task Interruption, but it’s definitely moved beyond that simple idea.

Lithuanian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik’s (1900-1988) most famous insight: people remember the details of tasks if they are disrupted or the task is incomplete, much better than they recall the details of tasks that they finish without interruption.

The Zeigarnik Effect, also known as “Task Interruption” or the “Cliffhanger Effect” is charismatic in our world of distraction, multi-tasking, and shortening attention-spans. (By the way, if, while you’re reading this, you need to stop for a moment and grab a cup of coffee or dash off a text, go for it.)

The COVID-19 Pandemic is a great example of a collective interruption.

The Zeigarnik Effect is oft-cited these days when opinion-makers agonize over whether juggling a variety of undertakings, communications, and connections is inspiring and/or overwhelming us.

Out of the blue we’re confronted with the latest tweet, a long lost lover online, a job offer on Linked In, a podcast that vows to transform our lives, a neurosurgeon who tells us everything we know about our mind is wrong, technologists, teachers, and philosophers who all exhort us to look at our world in different ways.

Even our lust for long-form series TV and serial podcasts underscores our desire for interruption: we want the whole story — we just don’t want it all at once.

The new opera is modular, goofy, interrupted, and moving — a wild disruptive ride.

(The images of the Virgin Mary on this page are from Tze Yeung Ho.