La Claque

By 1830, an insidious staple of the Parisian arts scene was the claque, a coterie of audience plants who, for an appropriate fee, would provide applause, cheers, tears, etc as appropriate. La Claque, an original musical, follows a ragamuffin claque of misfits and orphans, and primarily young Solange, the most talented pleureuse (a claquer who specializes in crying). Coming of age in the hub of Parisian arts and culture, Solange is sophisticated and articulate but utterly ignorant of the world outside. This changes one day when she stumbles onto the funeral of a stranger. Here, in this new environment of genuine tears and genuine tragedy, Solange’s false tears provide genuine comfort, and she begins to unearth the depths of her own emotions. Now, she must find her place between these two worlds: the claque she has always called home and a darker world beyond, erupting in political rebellion and its bloody aftermath. 

A one-time-only reading of the book and lyrics of La Claque will occur at 10 AM on December 3rd as process for Peter Gray’s Theater Studies Senior Project