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DREAM ON THE FARM: Paradise Lost: Scavenger Hunt, conceived and directed by Tannis Kowalchuk with Farm Arts Collective

Thursday to Sunday, July 24 - August 27

Farm Arts Collective’s DREAM ON THE FARM is a cycle of climate change performances produced annually from 2020-2030. The 6th play in the series, Paradise Lost: Scavenger Hunt will premiere July 24 -August 3, 2025 at Farm Arts Collective on Willow Wisp Organic Farm in Damascus, PA.

Inspired by John Milton’s 17th century epic poem Paradise Lost, Farm Arts Collective and director Tannis Kowalchuk take a contemporary ecological spin on the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.  The collectively created performance proposes that contemporary humans have also lost their garden of Eden and connection to nature, and that responsibility, new choices, and revolutionary thinking is required to live in our current post-paradise world.

The performance begins in a style of musical Noh Theatre (a form of ancient Japanese theatre) to tell the biblical Genesis story featuring God (Oliver King), Adam (James Sullivan) and Eve (Tannis Kowalchuk). The well-known drama unfolds with original music composed by Doug Rogers using selected Milton’s texts, and performed by a chorus of singers, drummers, and musicians in the roles of angels and devils.  

When Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise, the audience is invited to follow the lovers on a SCAVENGER HUNT across the 25-acre farmland of Willow Wisp Organic Farm. They encounter performances, interactive experiences, art installations, and a host of surprises that invite the scavenger hunters to face the impacts that their choices have had on paradise.  Questions like: What is your Paradise? What do you fear losing most? Can paradise be re-claimed? are presented and investigated throughout the site-specific theatrical scavenger hunt.

Poster design by Karen Hudson