Stories Reimagined: Six Performances Explore Traditional Tales with a Creative Twist!

—i.e., not your grandmother’s fairy tales!

One of the most incredible powers of the performing arts is their ability to bring stories to life, immersing us in completely different realms or realities. During the 2025–26 season, Cal Performances is presenting a large selection of performances that offer a fresh take on traditional and well-known works of fiction—in other words, not your grandmother’s fairy tales! Whether through added musical elements, trippy visuals, or new mediums of storytelling, these programs offer something both familiar and radically distinct at the same time. In this article, we’ve highlighted six such offerings, adding context about the original works as well as the bold new interpretations in store this season.

You would be hard pressed to find someone completely unfamiliar with Lewis Carroll’s iconic children’s novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Written in 1865, the Victorian fantasy has its origin in a story Carroll made up to entertain his friend’s young children (including one Alice Liddell) during a long boat ride. The elaborate tale—embellished during the writing process—follows a young girl who comes across a handsomely dressed White Rabbit bearing a pocket watch and lamenting his own tardiness. Astounded by the spectacle, Alice chases after the rabbit, falls down a rabbit hole, and lands in Wonderland, a new world where nonsense is the law of the land. During her time there, Alice encounters an outrageous cast of characters, including a disappearing Cheshire Cat, a hookah-smoking Caterpillar, the nonsensical [Mad] Hatter and March Hare, the villanois Queen of Hearts, and the dancing Griffin and Mock Turtle. The colorful story chronicles Alice’s attempt to make her way through this fantastic landscape, and to define herself at a time when her self-image, her physical being (who can forget the classic treat that makes Alice grow and shrink in turn?!), and the world around her is constantly shifting in new and unexpected ways.

In November, MOMIX—led by company founder and the work’s choreographer, Moses Pendleton—will deliver a new interpretation of Carroll’s beloved tale, told through lively dance and gravity-defying acrobatics. While the troupe is not intending to retell Alice’s full story, it does use the original text as inspiration for the series of bright, psychedelic vignettes that make up the performance. According to the company, “The Alice story is full of imagery and absurd logic—before there was surrealism, there was Alice. Alice is an invitation to invent, to let imagination run and play outside.” Because the story itself is so closely tied to concepts of transformation and defying logic, it provides an incredible canvas for movement and illusion that are seemingly magical. Pendleton shared, “I want to take this show into places we haven’t been before in terms of the fusion of dancing, lighting, music, costumes, and projected imagery.”

Emily Dickinson was a beloved American poet who lived from 1830–1886, and is known today as much for her poems as for her unorthodox approach to writing and living. Dickinson was a prolific writer, creating more than 1,800 poems, though very few were published during her lifetime. She experimented with various forms of poetry (though most commonly utilized lyric frameworks), as well as altered meter, capitalization, and even punctuation, with many associating the writer with her use of dashes at the end of lines. Over the course of her life, Dickinson became increasingly reclusive, rarely leaving her bedroom. However, the world within her poems extends far beyond those four walls, and touches frequently on concepts of nature, life and death, and emotional connection to oneself and to others. Some of her most popular works, each of which is identified by its first line, include “If I can stop one Heart from breaking” and “Because I could not stop for Death—.” The title of Joyce DiDonato and Time for Three’s performance is pulled in part from one of her poems that reads:

No Prisoner be—
Where Liberty—
Himself—abide with Thee—

Though “lyric” poems do not directly refer to song lyrics, composer Kevin Puts has expanded the application of Dickinson’s poetry by setting 24 of her poems, both better and lesser known, to music. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and vocal and string ensemble Time for Three will engage with poems including those mentioned above as well as “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!,” and “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” among many others. By lifting the poems off of the page and into the world of music, the performers are able to interpret and layer a complex emotional soundscape that is inspired by the text, and to deliver the poems in a manner that creates a shared experience for all in attendance.

Released in 1921, The Kid is a popular silent film that was written, produced, and directed by Charlie Chaplin, who also stars in the film alongside Jackie Coogan. The plot follows Chaplin’s character, “The Tramp,” as he finds and eventually adopts a young orphan, despite having his own pre-existing financial troubles. The unlikely pair engage in hilarious antics, including their scheme of having the child break windows so that The Tramp can be hired to repair them. The story focuses on the pair’s imperfect and endearing relationship, and features Chaplin’s trademark slapstick humor as well as more sentimental and deeply emotive acting. At the time of its release, the Chicago Herald and Examiner published a review that read, “The Kid settles once and for all the question as to who is the greatest theatrical artist in the world. Chaplin does some of the finest, most delicately shaded acting you ever saw anywhere… The Kid is two fisted. Its right glove is packed with the pearls of tears, its left with the horseshoe of laughter.”

In March, guitarist Marc Ribot gives the silent film an entirely new soundtrack during a screening with live music in Zellerbach Hall. With 25 albums published under his own name and many more for which he has been a key collaborator—not the least of which is Tom Waits’ legendary 1985 Americana album Rain Dogs—Ribot has performed across a wide range of genres, including roots, jazz, rock, and no-wave/punk/noise, to name just a few. In developing his own score for the film, Ribot draws from many musical influences, as well as one modern historical reference point: the aftermath of the US economic crisis in 2008 (given the film’s depiction of The Tramp and his adoptive son’s financial difficulties). Ribot’s score has been praised for perfectly capturing the movie’s tonal shifts between humor and sentimentality, and its multitude of emotional highs and lows. This performance uniquely reflects Ribot’s intentional “reading of this film as a contemporary film,” and offers audiences a new and nuanced interpretation of this treasured classic.

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth was written in 1623 and takes its inspiration from historical figures of Scotland (most notably, Macbeth MacFinlay, King of Scotland) who were active during the 1030s–1050s, though resemblance to these figures is certainly tenuous. In the tragic play, we follow the Scottish General Macbeth who receives a prophecy from three witches (also known as the Weird Sisters) that he will one day become King of Scotland. Fueled by ambition, Macbeth kills the current king in order to claim the throne, and allows his greed and paranoia to inspire further acts of violence and tyranny at both a personal and state level. It can also be interpreted that the witches fuel Macbeth’s eventual demise: With assurance from the witches that he cannot be killed by “any man born of a woman,” Macbeth begins to feel invincible and is emboldened to take on his enemy. It is only when he comes face to face with Macduff that he learns his challenger was born by cesarean and, as such, is technically an exception to the limitations put forth in the witches’ (very literal) prophecy, allowing Macduff to behead the Scottish King.

A troupe of otherworldly imagination, Manual Cinema is renowned for utilizing bold techniques—including shadow puppetry, actors in silhouette, immersive sound design, and live music—to bring engaging stories to life. Of their new production, Co-Artistic Director Drew Dir shared, “I started to wonder, oh, wouldn’t it be interesting to tell a story about someone who is impacted by Macbeth’s tyranny? And to follow their psychology and maybe how they lose themselves, and maybe it’s a way to mirror Macbeth’s own journey?” The subject of this exploration is a young girl who finds herself displaced and orphaned as a result of Macbeth’s military pursuits chronicled in Shakespeare’s play. Facing a sharp severance from her past and a deep loss of all that once defined her world, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery within the safe and welcoming community offered to her by three witches—who just so happen to be the very three who prophesied Macbeth’s rise (and eventual fall). In the safety of her new adoptive family, she must learn how to make sense of her loss as she grapples with a strong desire for revenge on the Scottish King. Though the production alludes to Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, The 4th Witch centers itself on questions of identity, personal history, and the comfort and growth allowed for by a strong community.

Philip Glass’ renowned opera La Belle et la Bête takes its inspiration from the 1946 French surrealist film of the same name (which is itself taken from the French fairy tale written in 1740), written and directed by Jean Cocteau. The film follows a fairly similar plot to the Disney adaptation that serves as the popular reference point for most individuals today, with minor alterations: A merchant is caught picking a rose from the Beast’s garden, for which the Beast demands his life. The merchant’s daughter, Belle, offers to live in the castle with the Beast in exchange for her father’s freedom, and over time develops feelings of tenderness and eventually love toward her captor, who turns out to be a cursed Prince. By the end of the film, the curse has been lifted, and Belle and the not-so-beastly prince decide to wed. The overall aesthetic of the film is opulent with Baroque-style sets and costuming, though the fearsome beast wears a mask modeled after a production member’s pet husky, looking in the end part dog, part dear, and all beast.

Philip Glass, one of today’s most influential composers and a cornerstone of the “minimalism” style that first emerged in the 1960s, originally developed a new score for the 1946 film with the idea that his music would be played and sung over the original as a sort of “reverse lip-syncing.” He first premiered this work in the 1990s, though when Opera Parallèle reached out a few years ago about collaborating on a revitalized project, the entire concept expanded. The opera that will come to Zellerbach Hall in March will involve actors onstage, as well as elements of projected film—mostly original, though some newly recorded and interwoven into Cocteau’s film—to immerse audiences in the production. Staying true to the movie’s surrealist nature, this one-of-a-kind production blurs the lines between film and opera, calling into question: “What is real and surreal? Who is singing and where? What is conscious and unconscious?”

As with any ancient myth, defining the true origins of a libretto developed over one thousand years ago—and an accompanying operatic production developed hundreds of years later… well, that’s complicated! To go back to the very beginning, Heracles was the Greek demigod born of Hera and Zeus, who appeared across many ancient myths. The same character was adopted in Roman mythology as Hercules, and made appearances in heroic tales of this tradition as well. Handel’s composition, which premiered in 1745, includes the character Hercules, but in fact centers more on his wife, Dejanira (or, Deianira), a mythological Greek princess whose name translates to “man-destroyer.” The libretto for Handel’s work is adapted primarily from Women of Trachis, penned by the Greek tragedian Sophocles around 450–425 BC; additional material was pulled in part from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses from 8 CE. In the primary text, Women of Trachis, Deianeira feels her husband growing distant from his family; he is always off on yet another heroic adventure. Heracles has left Deianeira alone for 15 months when she learns that his most recent siege was motivated by his desire to capture a younger woman, Iole, whom he hoped to take as a lover. Distraught and riddled with jealousy, Deianeira takes advantage of a charmed coat given to her by Lichas, who promises her that, if worn by her husband, it will redirect his affection for other women. It is only after Deianeira finds Heracles in a near-death state that the truth is revealed: the coat, unbeknownst to Deianeira, is poisonous, and proves to be her husband’s undoing.

As Handel envisioned it, Hercules was not intended to be a full opera, but instead a “musical drama” without staging. The libretto for the work was developed by an Anglican clergyman, Thomas Broughton, and though he used the aforementioned texts to provide general structure, his version (and, accordingly, the version we now attribute to Handel) restores Hercules’ heroism and virtue, which, as a result, makes Deianeira’s jealousy seem unreasonable and unjust. Though the work has been considered exceptional from the time of its premiere in 1744, today it is rarely performed. The English Concert, considered the world’s foremost interpreters and performers of Handel’s dramatic works, is now bringing one of its renowned concert performances to Zellerbach Hall, inviting audiences on a powerful musical journey that brings this ancient story straight into the present.