Stomping Grounds returned in 2024 through a workshop performance presented by Seattle Opera and Seattle Children’s Theatre, seven years after its premiere at The Glimmerglass Festival. Written by Paige Hernandez with music by Victor Simonson, the hour-long hip-hop opera blends hip-hop, spoken word, and operatic writing in an exploration of cultural identity, diversity, faith, love, and connection to home. Its intersecting stories center refugees, immigrants, native-born communities, and descendants of enslaved people as an inner-city coffee shop confronts the pressures of gentrification. The 2024 workshop was presented as the first step toward a youth adaptation of the work by Seattle Children’s Theatre.

to view the 2017 world premiere production, click here —>