For 13 years now, the resident performing arts companies at the Rose Wagner Center—Plan-B Theatre Company, Pygmalion Theatre Company, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, SB Dance, Repertory Dance Theatre and the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition—have worked together on an annual one-night-only end-of-summer showcase. For the first time, however, that collaboration is taking on a more literal meaning in 2024.

Whereas in previous years, the individual companies have worked mostly independently on short pieces that may have been thematically connected, this year's Pictures at an Exhibition: ReFramed brings all six organizations together to work on a single new production. Inspired by Modest Mussorgsky's 1874 piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition, it's an original theater piece—with dance and live piano music—set in a museum, written by local playwright Melissa Leilani Larson.

"Over the years, we've talked a lot about, 'Wouldn't it be fantastic to create one piece together,'" says Jerry Rapier, artistic director of Plan-B Theatre Company. "But it always seemed a little large, like we didn't have quite enough time, given all of our individual schedules, to pull it off. Last year, we determined when we dropped the Rose Exposed title, [2023's] Mix Tape was our transitional format to this, so we could take a year to plan a full joint production, all working from a single script. We really didn't know what that would look like."

What it would look like did evolve, at least in Larson's understanding. "When the assignment first came to me, my understanding at first was [that] I'd be writing a short play for Plan-B and Pygmalion, then some cartilage between the other companies' work, like the Tony Awards, writing jokes between presentations," she says. "Then as I was working on it, those two ideas kind of came together."

The idea of anxiety over presenting a creative work was ultimately built into the show's concept. In keeping with the historical reality of many of the artistic works by Viktor Hartmann that inspired Mussorgsky's piece now being lost, this Pictures at an Exhibition: ReFramed is set at the opening of a museum exhibit that isn't quite ready to go yet. Larson—a self-professed "museum nerd"—loved the idea of the setting, and how it fits into the idea of what this joint production has always been about.

"But the structure of the story of the museum aligns, because it's about a visitor walking through the museum," Larson says. "Mussorgsky's piece was about celebrating the work of his artist friend, so it's about sharing art. And you have this meta level of sharing art, about sharing art, about sharing art."

They're also having fun, however, with the idea of art being ephemeral. As noted, many of the Hartmann works no longer exist, and images of existing work are sometimes of low quality. While Ririe-Woodbury's Daniel Charon developed video projections to accompany the show, he and Larson hit on the idea of art works in a gallery sometimes feeling disappointing, either because they're smaller than you expect or because you have to view them from a distance. "We're riffing on the idea of small pictures from far away," Rapier says. "The overall focus is, of course, to celebrate the art and the music, but also to help people celebrate art, and what it takes to give yourself over to art."

While all of the participating companies were able to weigh in on which parts of the Mussorgsky suite they would set their contributions to, it's still not easy to herd all the cats of six companies, each with their own schedules and other rehearsals—as well as day jobs, in many cases—to coordinate. "We don't have all the rehearsal time in the world with [the dancers]," notes Pygmalion's Fran Pruyn, who directs the production. "We don't see all the dancers until [a week before the show]. ... You wouldn't think it would be that hard to coordinate, and from the viewpoint of dealing with professional artists, it isn't. Odd things are going to happen, and I'm equally convinced that they'll be able to roll with it."

Rolling with it—in terms of having a trust in the process—is a huge part of what can allow a project like this to succeed. Rapier believes that everyone involved showed that trust in Larson's script, even when many of these artists aren't used to working from a script. "Everyone realized [Larson] was really the storyteller to trust. When she sent the first draft of the script out, there were very few notes."

Whether it all ultimately comes together is something that, as Rapier notes with a laugh, they'll only know "around 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 24." Yet despite the challenges, this process of sharing art—and sharing the experience of presenting it—is one that all of the artists involved value.

"Honestly, every year, we're like, 'Should we do this anymore?'" Rapier says. "Then, as we're all gathered together with the audience, as a team, we think, 'Why would we ever stop doing this?'"