Projects – emily bate

Homo Economicus

Homo Economicus is a solo performance about the economy, written and performed by Emily Bate. It uses vocal music, economics lecture, striptease, club tracks and heaps of garbage. It explores the current economy as expressed through our individual lives, and illuminates pathways to rebuilding the economy from the ground up.

Wig Wag

Wig Wag is a hybrid music-theater piece, performed by a cast of four in collaboration with the entire audience. In Wig Wag, singing together transforms everyone present into one collective body, as we explore the tensions and pleasures found in the thick tangle of our interdependence.

Wig Wag is inspired by scientists, philosophers and artists like Anna Tsing, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Donna Haraway, Gary Snyder, Tyson Yunkaporta and Andreas Weber, who all insist there is no split between humans and the rest of nature, and no discrete boundary around the self. Each “self” is actually a network of relationships.

Creator Emily Bate uses communal singing to make that idea come alive in Wig Wag. Emily draws on her work as a composer, community songleader, and choir conductor to blend deeply accessible, participatory music with stunning vocal acrobatics performed by the cast.

It’s a show for people who love to sing, people who “can’t sing” and those for whom both apply. Wig Wag is about collectively experiencing the impact we have on each other, and singing our way through it. (Good and bad attitudes welcome.)

The Wig Wag Album + Song Book Zine

Show history:

2023: World Premiere as part of the Curated Fringe in the Fringe Festival, Philadelphia
2022: Work-in-process shows at Trade School Festival; supported residency October 2022 at Bethany Arts Center.
2021: Virtual showing, The Philadelphia Thing
2020: Wig Wag workshops, part of FringeArts’ High Pressure Fire Service season
2019: Supported development residencies at FringeArts (Philadelphia) and Glen Arbor Arts Center (Michigan).

Credits:

Composed and written by: Emily Bate
In collaboration with: Samantha Rise, Sally Louise Polk, Jackie Soro and Rebecca Wright

Directed by Rebecca Wright
Emily Schreiner, Producer
Elizabeth Braden, Music Director
Patrick Costello, Set, Costume and Props Designer
Damien Figueras, Sound Designer
Krista Smith, Lighting Designer
Chloe Kincade, Stage & Production Manager
Rachael Cohen, Creature Costume Prototype & Signage Designer
Sarah Bishop-Stone, Associate Producer & Outreach Coordinator
Dorie Byrne, Score Supervisor
Cullen Parr, Animator
Jackie Soro, Choreographer
Rita Burkholder, Lou Hemler, Taryn Jones and Lizzie Hurst, Fabricators
Niki Cousineau, Financial Manager

photos by Johanna Austin

High Priestess, Sole Proprietor

“High Priestess, Sole Proprietor” is a vocal duet created with Heidi Wilson, a community songleader, songwriter and small biz owner. In November, 2024, Heidi and I recorded ourselves having a conversation about the intersection of artistic work and the fearsome creature known as “making a living.” In January ’25, we spent a snowy afternoon together at MacDowell, where I was in residence, improvising together using excerpts from our interview. I have used our words, music, and real life finances as a launchpad for composing this vocal duet.

Heidi and I performed the piece for an invited audience on December 5th, 2025 in Plainfield VT; recording forthcoming in 2026, recorded at Destroy Audio.

Going Down Mount Moriah

Going Down Mount Moriah is choral theater and feminist spectacle. A choir rises up from a murky lake bottom: there’s finger-pointing, navel-gazing, rollerskating, and rattling the bars of the cage. A show exploring the extent to which trauma constitutes personhood, Going Down Mount Moriah will tell you jokes, terrify you and sing you to sleep, not necessarily in that order.

Recordings

Music from Wig Wag
Music from Rose: You Are Who You Eat
Music from A Ride on the Irish Cream
Choral arrangements of the songs of Beverly Glenn-Copeland
Jonagold