The Ambition Bird

Loft Theatre, CIncinnati

About the Show

Next in The Human Race’s nationally noted Musical Workshop Series is The Ambition Bird, an intimate chamber musical by Matthew Sheridan about famed American confessional poet Anne Sexton.
Sexton became known for the self-revelation of her work in the 1960s, revelation all the more dramatic because of mental illness so severe she was often hospitalized for treatment. She was a hit on the poetry-reading circuit, but deeply troubled in her private life.

Sexton, a contemporary, friend, and rumored lover of Sylvia Plath, won the Pulitzer Prize for Live or Die, a collection published in 1966. Other notable works were All My Pretty Ones and Transformations, as well as the play 45 Mercy Street. Her later poems turned in a strongly feminist direction. Sexton’s work inspired the opera Transformations and Peter Gabriel’s song, “Mercy Street.” She attempted suicide on several occasions, succeeding in 1974.