
Written, directed, and performed by Lynette Wallworth
BAM DEBUT
Lynette Wallworth spent her early adulthood like any average person—acting as a Bible-interpreting prophetess in a radical Pentecostal community in Sydney. In her BAM debut, the Emmy Award-winning Australian artist deftly shifts her work from film to stage to share an incisive and deeply engrossing morality tale for our times—one in which she just happens to be the protagonist. Using her medium-traversing works as touchstones, Wallworth sheds light on the seduction of cultish extremism by recounting her own descent into an exclusionary, mind-warping belief system and her eventual escape through art. Giving voice to experiences she never intended to share, Wallworth confronts and responds with bold, bracing candor to the troubling rise of implausible conspiracy theories and the toxic alliance that sometimes emerges between the extreme edges of organized religion and fascist forces. HOW TO LIVE (after you die) finds a master storyteller at the peak of her powers, pointing to the ways in which fanaticism can hold the imagination captive, unless we find the courage to reclaim the creation of our own life and story.
Dramaturgy by Louise Gough
Lighting Design by Neil Simpson
Graphic Design by More Studio
VFX Animations by Sohan Ariel Hayes and Radheya Jegatheva
Music by Anohni
With thanks to the Lennon Estate
Produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film
Commissioned by RISING Melbourne and The Sydney Opera House Trust
Leadership support for
BAM Access Programs
provided by the
Jerome L. Greene Foundation
Leadership support for
Next Wave 2023
provided by:
Leadership support for theater at BAM provided by:
The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc.;
The SHS Foundation;
and The Shubert Foundation, Inc.
Leadership support for BAM Film provided by:
The Thompson Family Foundation