Democratic Leaders — PHOEBE LEGERE TOTAL ARTIST

Queen of New England, commissioned by the Roulette Foundation and supported by a NYSCA grant, is centered on Queen Weetamoo, Legere’s direct ancestor and a formidable seventeenth-century Wampanoag military and political leader, the opera restores a woman erased from official history to the center of her own story.

Blending contemporary classical composition with ancient Indigenous healing melodies, the work brings Juilliard-trained musicians performing a fully notated score into dialogue with Native American artists improvising from ancestral traditions. Conducting from the piano, Legere creates a living soundscape where multiple humanities attempt to speak, listen, and reckon with one another. Projected images of sacred sites—Council Oak of Taunton, Pokanoket landscapes, and colonial maps—collide with historical memory, revealing the spiritual depth of Indigenous governance alongside the encroaching forces of colonial capitalism and expansion.

The opera examines the fragile alliances between the Mayflower Separatists and the Wampanoag, shaped by mutual recognition yet fractured by subsequent waves of settlers driven by extraction and control. At its core is a moment of democratic failure: Weetamoo arrives as a diplomat seeking peace, only to be denied a voice because she is a woman. Her exclusion—gendered, political, and cultural—becomes the catalyst for war.

Through this lens, Queen of New England interrogates the foundations of American democracy: who is heard, who is silenced, and how fear and perceived threat distort the possibility of shared governance. The work positions artists as vital agents in civic life—recovering suppressed histories, embodying contested narratives, and deepening public understanding of democracy’s unfinished project.

This piece directly informs Legere’s proposed new work, George and Venus: Democracy in the Making, which continues this inquiry by examining the untold influences of Indigenous governance and interracial intimacy on the founding of the United States. Together, these works illuminate democracy not as a fixed ideal, but as a contested, evolving process shaped by voices too often excluded from its telling.

Under this poster - PRESS FOR SPEEDQUEEN - the Dixon Place Commission

and on right, PRESS for SHAKESPEARE and ELIZABETH !

for more press go to https://www.phoebelegere.com/critics

Legere is a real singer…Large in stature, large in voice, large in persona, huge in talent,

“She’s brash, funny with a real musicality in her strong voice, and beautiful. AND-she sings in French and plays the accordion…a major talent…

This woman is a real star…a stage dynamo. They don’t make performers more entertaining than Phoebe Legere.

It’s uplifting - a privilege to be at a performance by Legere.” – Richmond Shepard, Performing Arts

Phoebe Legere is a transmedia artist. From resident composer at the WoosterGroup while still a teenager, to opening for David Bowie on his national tour, to a nomination for a Pulitzer for her work with Morgan Powell and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, her existence infinitely incarnates artistic and human experience. - The Brooklyn Rail

INSIDER “She's as talented as you can get, and an all around swell gal.” - Black Book

• "I loved it" - Janet Coleman, Theater, WBAI

•

• "Witty, high-octane mega-watt stardom, sings like an angel, plays sizzling piano and a mean accordion...she pulls out all the stops..." Patrick Christiano,

THEATER LIFE

• Blessed with a swinging croon as dynamic as Judy Garland's; magnetic

intensity that recalls Carol Channing; and a swaggering exuberance that would wow Ethel Merman, Phoebe Legeres talent is the sort that uplifts sinking ships.

• "Legere has outdone herself in crafting infectious tunes that set the audience bopping with delight. As a tunesmith, she is Cole Porter's feminine flipside. -

Theater World•

• "Legere's delivery is of the sort that Fred Astaire used to sell a song: dashing execution wedded to precise elocution. When impersonating Joe’s lovers and their hijinks - notably Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead - Legere shows a madcap brilliance for comedy.”

." BROADWAY WORLD

•

• If you've never heard of Carstairs, it's probably because, like many bold women throughout history, her story has been suppressed. That's something Carstairs and Legere have in common .One of the show's most powerful sequences recalls when Carstairs was nearly murdered by a German solider during WWI until she seized a rifle and dispatched him with savage fury. But when a British army officer came upon the scene, instead of commending her, he dismissed her as "just a girl." Legere also knows what it's like to be written off, and her empathy for Carstairs is obvious throughout. It's challenging to be a woman ahead of her time, but that's what led both Carstairs and Legere down such

singular paths at breakneck speed. -THEATRE DEVELOPMENT FUND

• Bursting onto the scene as Joe Carstairs, you feel enthralled by Legere who matches her characters fierceness. Blessed with a

voice that belts DRAMA!; she could transform a hum into an opus. Legere

truly delivers the essence of cabaret as an art form and test of human beings capacity to grab attention and transform it into amazement. -DIANDRA REVIEWS IT ALL

•

• Legere's sonorous and wide-ranging voice fills the room…”

"Check out Phoebe Legere - she doesn't so much sing a song as inhabit it.... with a pure,

remarkable four and a half-octave range..."

New York Daily News

"She is arresting... we like Phoebe"

The New Yorker

“Por su sensualidad de dinamita, a la artista multidisciplinaria rubia Phoebe Legere se le relaciona con Marilyn

Monroe y Brigitte Bardot en sus presentaciones, siendo comparada musicalmente con Edith Piaf y denominada “la

Frank Zappa femenina”. Proceso, Mexico City

"A master writer of startlingly beautiful, heroic songs.” - Iman Labedi, RockNYC

“PHOEBE LEGERE is a living, breathing example of Brigitte Bardot in the film And God Created Woman…a deeply serious artist…An amazing musical intellect. - White Hot Magazine of Contemporary Art, Kofi Forson

PHOEBE LEGERE is a magnificent musician .She is a very special human being and her radiance is instantly recognizable when she steps on stage.-Ruddy Cheeks, The Phoenix

"Her beautiful voice, with its dazzling range and rich tones.... can

take your breath away... she runs the gamut of music like a Marx

brother crossing to stage left...", She's solidly based in her art and

is a superb musician. "

Ron Della Chiesa, NPR

“Phoebe Legere is a Genius"

Glenn O'Brian, Interview Magazine

" sexiest accordionist on the planet..."

TImeOut

"A serious gifted musician" The Music Paper

"effortless versatility...refreshing...a crystalline empathy. "

South China Morning Post

"Fascinating…spellbinding."

Steve Morse, Boston Globe

Ron Della Chiesa, on NPR: http://www.phoebelegere.com/Ron/Ron.Singer.Legere.mp3

"Perfection's name is Phoebe. She is beautiful, talented and sexy. A great singer whose voice

knows few limits...her band is excellent..."

Dan Aquilante, New York

Post

“PHOEBE LEGERE is the Female Beethoven...a musical genius.”

Joey Arias, Paper Magazine

Gesamtkunstwerk und Transmedia-Wunder: Phoebe Legere ist eine universelle

Künstlerin. Phoebe Legere ist eine Prophetin.

Tagesspiegel, Berlin

Shakespeare and Elizabeth (2013) is an opera-scale music theater work by Phoebe Legere that stages the religious violence of Elizabethan England as the crucible of modern democracy. A through-composed score fuses 17th-century counterpoint with blues, jazz, and cinematic orchestration, driving large-scale battle sequences of the Spanish Armada with cannon and sword combat. At its center, Elizabeth I—composer, writer, and sovereign—is reimagined as the primary author of Shakespeare’s plays. With a full ensemble in period costume, the work exposes how gendered exclusion and religious conflict shaped authorship, power, and the ideological conditions from which American politics emerged.

https://www.nytheatre-wire.com/ll13123t.htm

https://www.nytheatre-wire.com/ll13123t.htm Larry Litt

https://theaterlife.com/shakespeare-elizabeth-i/#:~:text=Queen%20Phoebe%20Legere%20is%20now,limited%20run%20through%20December%2015.

https://www.theatermania.com/shows/new-york-city-theater/off-off-broadway/shakespeare-and-elizabeth-i-the-reality-show_301088/

https://theaterlife.com/phoebe-legere-shines/

https://www.nyc-arts.org/events/shakespeare-and-elizabeth-i-the-reality-show-2/

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