THE LITTLE ZOMBIE GIRL
Composer - Omar Shahryar
Librettist - Ed Harris
Roll up, roll up! The circus is coming! And, ladies and gentlemen, steel yourselves for the most grotesque, most nightmarish, most horriblest freak the dead-end town of Grimpton has ever set its eyes upon: The Little Zombie Girl!
Wait... what do you mean she’s escaped?!
A comic, heart-warming, Gothic opera about an undead girl blessed with a magical singing voice. Ever since she was raised from the dead, the circus has exploited her and her magical singing to pull in the crowds. But now The Little Zombie Girl’s escaped is she free of the circus and its cruel exploitation – or does her magic voice simply bring out the greed in everyone? The Little Zombie Girl is a comedy about trust, self-acceptance and belonging... and, obviously, an escaped zombie!
Meet our award winning composing team
OMAR SHAHRYAR
Composer
Omar Shahryar is an award-winning composer and evil scientist. Recent commissions include Songs t0 Remember (Birmingham Opera Company), the symphonic fables Six Fables and Cours, cours, cours! (Orchestra National d'Auvergne). Omar’s digital mini-opera Blue, Red, Yellow... For the English National Opera's “Finish This” programme has inspired over 14,000 primary school children around the UK to compose their own mini-operas. His youth opera about the efects of terrorism, A Shoe Full of Stars, won the YAMA ward Prize for Best Opera for Young People 2018. From Colombia to Canada, from Norway to Oman, Omar's expertise in participatory opera is internationally sought after.
ED HARRIS
Librettist
Ed Harris is an award-winning, undead playwright and comedy writer. His plays include STRANGERS LIKE ME (National Theatre, Connections 2023), MONGREL ISLAND (Soho Theatre) and WHAT THE THUNDER SAID (Writers Guild Award, Best Play for Younger Audiences 2017). His BBC Radio 4 sitcom DOT began in 2015 and has another outing planned for next year. He is currently Writer-in-Residence for Kafka’s Transformative Communities at Wadham College, Oxford and Lead Writer on the BBC’s Kafkaesque Season 2024, for which he just won the international Prix Europa Award 2024. You can find him on Instagram at @edkharris