Morgan Hollingsworth
Composer | Actor | Musician | Arranger
More Than All the Sky
Music by Morgan Hollingsworth
Book and Lyrics by Lori Ada Jaroslow
After nine years of living on the street, Lenna Harris, 27, wends her way back to the town she grew up in and takes up residence in the local park. Filthy, sick, pregnant and in the stranglehold of addiction, Lenna is drowning in secrets, shame and self-loathing. While getting sober is the last thing Lenna thinks about, it seems she has hit rock bottom. She desperately wants to apologize to her mother for the pain she feels she has caused her, but what she doesn’t know is that while she was away, her mother was diagnosed with end stage Alzheimer’s disease. Can Lenna make amends to her mom before it’s too late, and will she ever find her way to a life of recovery? With a score that contrasts the sober, acoustic world with the ambient and electric chaos in Lenna's mind, MORE THAN ALL THE SKY insists that addiction is not a crime but a disease, and despite recovery being a formidable journey, there is a way out.
MORE THAN ALL THE SKY began as a fifteen-minute musical as part of NMI's Academy For New Musical Theatre, and then Morgan and Lori decided to expand it into a full-length piece to explore these characters and themes further.
"Flashback #1" - Young Lenna, Mae, & Chirpy: As Lenna and Mae play with their beloved bird, Chirpy, Mae introduces the idea of the family adopting another child. Cameron, drunk and belligerent, returns home.
"Will I Know Her" - Cameron: Cameron learns that his daughter, Lenna, whom he hasn’t seen in years, is strung out and living in the town park. Terrified of what he will find, he goes to the park to looking for her.
"A Million Forms Of Fear" - Ensemble: Cameron finally convinces Lenna to go to a meeting, though she is far from thrilled. The meeting is filled with sober alcoholics and addicts from various walks of life, all of whom are laughing and positive, and each of their stories further irritate and trigger her. Finally, having had enough, Lenna storms out.
"Water" - Lenna, Teen Lenna, Ensemble: Lenna calls Jordan and asks if she can stay the night with her, but Jordan won’t let her stay until she has thirty days clean. She hangs up on Jordan, grappling with a million self-loathing thoughts and complete despair. She has a vision of Teen Lenna and remembers all she could have been before her life was ravaged by her disease. Lenna decides she wants out and shoots up to die. She overdoses, but Cameron, who has come to find her, finds a cop and they give her Narcan before rushing her to the hospital.
"My Daughter" - Lenna, Mae, Ensemble: Lenna finally sits down with her mom. Mae, deep in the throes of Alzheimer’s, doesn’t recognize her own daughter and holds deep pain and remorse about losing her child. Lenna tries to apologize for her past and tells her mother how much she loves her. Somehow through their fractured conversation, the two are able to comfort each other about their agonizing pasts and find love and solace in the connection.