A quarter-long (Spring 2021) developmental workshopping of The Artificial Woman at University of California, Santa Cruz, with participation by the creators of the musical (Steve Gunderson and Amy Gerstler) culminated in virtual performances in May and June of 2021, directed by Kirsten Brandt, Assistant Professor of Musical Theater at San Jose State University. The musical will be staged as a full production by the UCSC Theater Arts Department in Winter Quarter, 2022. The Artificial Woman (book by Gerstler and Gunderson, music by Gunderson, lyrics by Gerstler) is historical fiction, based on the real-life tempestuous, nearly three-year relationship between Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) and Alma Mahler (1879-1964), a composer and widow of composer Gustav Mahler, and the break up that inspired the obsessed Kokoschka to commission an artist to create a life-sized Alma “doll.”
