This season, mezzo-soprano Courtney Crouse brings WOMAN to the stage — a bold reimagining of the traditional recital as a one-woman theatrical event where classical art song collides with cabaret, lived experience, and unflinching storytelling.

Blending music, monologue, and memoir, WOMAN traces Native American ancestry, love, ambition, career, and motherhood — asking, across time and song: What does it mean to be a woman?

Inspired by the 19th-century song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben (A Woman’s Love and Life), the performance reframes and responds to the historic narrative through a contemporary lens. Instead of presenting womanhood as a single prescribed arc, WOMAN offers a layered, modern portrait — one that holds complexity, contradiction, power, vulnerability, and choice.

Crouse, an artist and educator dedicated to helping performers harness neuroscience to deepen artistic expression, transforms the recital hall into a space of theatrical intimacy. Classical repertoire sits alongside cabaret influence and personal reflection, dissolving the boundary between performer and protagonist. The result is immediate, human, and electric.

At once concert, confession, and cultural reckoning, WOMAN invites audiences to reconsider inherited narratives about love, identity, lineage, and legacy — and to celebrate the multifaceted lives women live beyond the frame of tradition.

WOMAN is a show for anyone who has ever tried to reconcile who they were told to be with who they are becoming.

TOUR PACK

WOMAN
A Modern Reimagining of Frauenliebe und Leben

Created and Performed by Courtney Crouse
Presented in association with Echo: Amplifying Women’s Voices in the Arts

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026

Contact information: Courtney@echoawva.org

Website: echoawva.org     courtneylcrouse.com/recitals
Press email katelyn@echoawva.org

1. SHORT SHOW DESCRIPTION

WOMAN reimagines the classical recital as a bold one-woman theatrical event where art song, cabaret, and lived experience collide. Inspired by Frauenliebe und Leben, the show traces Native American ancestry, love, ambition, career, and motherhood — asking across time and music: What does it mean to be a woman?

Blending monologue and song, WOMAN reframes inherited narratives and offers a modern portrait of womanhood that is complex, vulnerable, and powerful.

2. Punchy Show Description (160 characters)

WOMAN hijacks the classical recital—art song, cabaret, & confession spiraling into a live, unfiltered act of becoming, What is WOMAN through time & song?

3. FULL SHOW DESCRIPTION

WOMAN transforms the recital stage into a theatrical, intimate space where classical art song meets cabaret, storytelling, and memoir. Inspired by the Robert Schumann 19th-century cycle Frauenliebe und Leben, the performance interrogates the traditional narrative of a woman’s life told through love and marriage — and reclaims it through a contemporary lens.

Through music and spoken text, Courtney Crouse traces her own lineage: Native American ancestry, artistic ambition, romantic partnership, career tension, and motherhood. Rather than presenting womanhood as a singular arc, WOMAN reveals its multiplicity — the ambition and the doubt, the performance and the private self, the inherited stories and the ones we choose to write.

The show invites audiences to sit inside the “in-between” moments of becoming — the spaces where identity shifts and artistry deepens. It is at once concert, confession, and cultural conversation.

WOMAN speaks to anyone who has wrestled with expectation, lineage, love, and legacy — and asks: who defines a woman’s life?

4. ARTIST BIO: Courtney Crouse

Courtney Crouse is mezzo-soprano, creator, and educator committed to reimagining the recital as living, breathing theatre. Her work bridges classical vocal performance, cabaret, and storytelling.

Alongside her performing career, Courtney is the founder of Echo: Amplifying Women’s Voices in the Arts, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women artists through performance, education, and neuroscience-informed creative development. Echo supports artists in harnessing the often-overlooked “in-between” stages of artistic growth — where doubt and brilliance coexist.

Courtney’s work centers on transforming traditional performance structures into spaces of immediacy, agency, and narrative reclamation.

5. ABOUT OUR COMPANY: ECHO

Echo: Amplifying Women’s Voices in the Arts

Echo is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to elevating and supporting women artists through performance opportunities, education, and creative development rooted in neuroscience and embodied artistry.

Echo supports:

  • Performance platforms for women-centered work

  • Workshops on audition psychology and performance neuroscience

  • Development spaces for new works

  • Artistic incubators (including works emerging from Dream Incubation processes)

Echo exists to amplify voices historically minimized in traditional artistic structures and to cultivate environments where women artists can develop sustainably and boldly.

6. WHY THIS WORK MATTERS NOW

WOMAN responds to:

  • Historic artistic canon centered on male gaze and male narratives

  • The evolving identity of women in performance

  • The need for recital reinvention

  • The blending of classical and contemporary audiences

It offers:

  • A recital format accessible to Fringe audiences

  • Built-in educational and workshop extensions

  • Cross-genre appeal (classical, musical theatre, cabaret)

7. TOURING POTENTIAL

WOMAN is ideal for:

  • Fringe festivals

  • Chamber music series

  • Universities

  • Women’s festivals

  • Arts centers

  • Museum series

  • Nonprofit partnerships

  • Native arts programming

  • Women’s leadership conferences

Runtime: 60 minutes
Tech requirements:  (piano, simple lighting for performers, projector and screen)
Cast: 1 performer + pianist 

8. WORKSHOP & OUTREACH OFFERING

Auditioning as a Skill: Neuroscience for Performers
Understanding fear response and how to work with it.

Reclaiming Narrative: Women in the Classical Canon
A lecture-performance format tied to WOMAN.

The In-Between: Dream Incubation Institute for Artists
Using the modern understanding of the brain and the nervous system to harness the creative act.

9. PRESS QUOTES 

“Crouse...practically stops the show with her soaring rendition of the beloved anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.  — Brandy McDonnell, The Oklahoman

“Courtney has integrated technology and story telling to create the most engaging recital format I have ever experienced.”— Dean Emeritus Mark Parker, Oklahoma City University

“Dr. Courtney Crouse’s recital was a treasure for the senses, the soul, and for the mind. The visual media images vibrant with colors and movement, were in perfect complement with the refined and stunning singing and instrumental collaboration. As we explored the voice and role of the feminine throughout history and story telling we felt the depth of the power and layers that embody womanhood. Being in a hallowed space that was so integral to the personal history of Dr. Crouse and the native spirit allowed us to transcend the concert space into a different dimension.”— Dr. Julie Yu-Oppenheim, Artistic Director Canterbury Voices

“Mezzo-soprano Courtney Crouse has redefined the boundaries of traditional academic and popular performance practices, crafting a powerful narrative that weaves seamlessly through the fabric of music history. Her innovative work, A Modern Frauen Lieben und Leben, transcends expectations, blending unique collaborations with theater, vocalists, instrumentalists, and cutting-edge technology. 

This GROUNDBREAKING performance sets a new standard for modern classical artistry, showcasing a bold and deeply resonant vision that elevates the genre to new heights.”

— Matthew Denman, Founder and Executive Director of the Leyenda Foundation

“Available for review at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026.”