An inaugural recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2012), Rinde Eckert has built a dynamic theatrical logic that is fiercely interdisciplinary. The Grammy Award-winning musician, writer, composer, librettist, and director is currently in residency at Wesleyan as part of the Creative Campus Initiative, in conjunction with the Theater Department.
During his residency, Eckert will be developing a new work entitled The Last Days of the Old Wild Boy. The work is about a man raised by wolves who finds himself toward the end of his life at the top of the food chain. Powerful and erudite, he longs for a return to the wildness of the wolf he was–but how does one recover one’s original, less conditioned or acculturated self? What is gained in the effort? What is lost in translation?
Eckert will perform in the world premiere of The Last Days of the Old Wild Boy alongside Wesleyan students. This blog is written by Eckert and will span his entire creative process, from preliminary experiments to dress rehearsals with the actors. Stay tuned for more information about the development of the project. This work is commissioned by the Center for the Arts, and is made possible by the Creative Campus Initiative and leadership support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.