Introducing Sing for Your Life: A Live Theatre Event

Promethean Artists, in association with KD Schmid, is proud to announce Sing for Your Life, a live theatre event chronicling Metropolitan Opera bass baritone Ryan Speedo Green’s journey from violence to the world’s elite opera circles.

Told through spoken word and song, New York Times best selling author Daniel Bergner joins Ryan on stage, while musical works by Mahler, Rossini, and African American Art Songs, performed live by Ryan, highlight important moments in his compelling story.

The Trailer

Sing For Your Life Trailer from the 2019 workshop at the Ferguson Center for the Arts

The Story

Ryan Speedo Green in Sing for Your Life — Ryan Speedo Green in *Sing for Your Life*

Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive. At the age of twelve, Ryan was sent to Virginia's juvenile facility of last resort. He was placed in solitary confinement. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with little hope for the future.

In 2011, at the age of twenty-four, Ryan won a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out 1,200 other talented singers. Today, he is a rising star performing major roles at the Met and Europe's most prestigious opera houses.

Based on the New York Times best selling book by the same name, Sing for Your Life is a live theatre event that chronicles Ryan's suspenseful, racially charged and artistically intricate journey from solitary confinement to stardom.

“Absolutely riveting”

— Renée Fleming on the book version of "Sing for Your Life"

“Deeply moving”

— The New York Times on the book version of "Sing for Your Life"

Daniel introduces audiences to a cast of memorable characters -- including the two teachers from Ryan’s childhood who help to redirect his rage into music, and his long-lost father who finally reappears to hear Ryan sing.

Sing for Your Life illuminates all that it takes -- technically, creatively -- to find and foster the beauty of the human voice, and sheds unique light on the enduring, complex, and urgent realities of race in America.