A Phantom Song

Directed & Produced by: Michael Gorman, Donna Daly, 45 minutes

A Q+A with the playwright, producers, cast members, and others to follow the screening.

A playwright and advocate breathes new life into a long-abandoned theater, creating a visual metaphor of recovery and rehabilitation
for both the theater and those living in the shadows of the opiate crisis in the State Capitol of Augusta, Maine.

In a blues opera cast directly from the recovery, reentry, and unhoused community, playwright Michael Gorman and his “Phantoms” create an inspiring chorus of faces and voices that are often unseen and unheard to confront the bias and resistance that can lead to the destructive power of stigma.
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Haunted by the ghosts of Moby Dick and the memory of all those lost to the opiate epidemic, “A Phantom Song” takes us down to
“the crossroads” where the past and future collide in a dramatic struggle for the soul of a theater and its surrounding community.

The film also serves as a companion piece to The Forty Hour Club’s new blues/rock opera THE MOBY DICK BLUES that recently premiered at La MaMa in New York City (June 2025). The opera was developed in Maine over the course of six years as part of the company’s on-going Art & Advocacy project “Chasing The New White Whale—Harpooning Addiction”. The project received support from SPACE’s Kindling Fund Grant, The Maine Arts Commission, and The Onion Foundation.

September is National Recovery Month.