Actor, writer, and director Omari Newton and playwright Amy Lee Lavoie appreciate great comedic writing. This becomes immediately apparent when the husband-and-wife team share their love for the zany humour of Mel Brooks and Christopher Guest’s clever mockumentaries during a Zoom interview with Pancouver.
Moreover, the Vancouver couple is injecting this aesthetic into their newest project, Inferno: A Hip Hop Opera. As part of IndieFest 2025, re:Naissance will present this “work in development” at DigiBC Creative Tech Studio on Friday (November 28) and Saturday (November 29).
“Sometimes when you talk about an adaptation of Dante’s ‘Inferno’, it sounds really heady and dry,” Newton says. “But it’s very funny. It’s meant to be kind of absurd.”
Newton and Lavoie’s version blends hip-hop, rap, beat boxing, sampling, R&B, and contemporary opera. And it delivers this with internationally admired opera singer Teiya Kasahara, soul and blues artist Leo DE Johnson, rapper and hip-hop performer Kimmortal, and beatboxer Scribbly Doodle.
More than 700 years ago, Dante Alighieri wrote “Inferno” as the first part his narrative, epic poem The Divine Comedy. In it, Roman poet Virgil leads a fictionalized version of Dante through nine concentric circles of Hell. There, he encounters the consequences of Greed, Gluttony, Fraud, Treachery, and other actions resulting in eternal damnation. Beatrice, the spiritual guide who sends Virgil, embodies faith, grace, and religious knowledge.
Inferno comes to life in a corporate office
Newton and Lavoie have re-imagined this piece for the 21st century, with female-identifying characters vie and mo in place of Dante and Virgil. This version is distinctively secular, with Vie as an independent musician with a beautiful song.
“She meets at a restaurant with the CEO of this company, Streams, and is wined and dined—as one is in the industry by the suits,” Newton explains. “She signs away the rights to this song, and immediately the world shifts. The CEO disappears and she finds herself in dark, metaphoric woods. Then she has to go on this search to regain her soul—in the form of this piece of art that she assigned the rights away from.”
As for Hell, it’s depicted in the corporate office of Streams. According to Lavoie, the framework of the story has changed somewhat with the implementation of artificial intelligence.
“Beatrice is represented in this piece by the song—the song that is stolen,” Lavoie reveals.
So, what does it mean when IndieFest 2025 describes Inferno: A Hip Hop Opera as a work in development?
“Narratively, the audience will experience the piece in its entirety, but there will be higher production elements for certain levels of Hell,” Lavoie says.
Newton, a longtime spoken word and hip-hop artist, says that he was introduced to Dante’s “Inferno” as a liberal arts major at Concordia University. Years later, the founding artistic director of re:Naissance, Debi Wong, approached him about developing a project for IndieFest.
“I had this idea of creating a hip-hop opera that was an adaptation of Dante’s ‘Inferno’. And because my wife is brilliant and my partner in all things, I was, like, ‘We should do this together,’ ” Newton recalls. “I say this in every interview: my wife is my favourite writer!”
Pandemic prompts Lavoie to embrace project
Lavoie acknowledges that initially, she said “no” to the concept because she was unsure about the form. In addition, she didn’t have the same relationship to the source material as her husband had.
However, once COVID struck, Dante’s “Inferno” resonated more strongly with Lavoie. So, she jumped onboard with the idea.
The two are no strangers to working together, having collaborated in the past on the plays Redbone Coonhound, Blackfly, and Megalodon.
“Each project is so different and informs our processes,” Lavoie states. “I’m a bit of a perfectionist; I like being the first one in and the last one out. But because Omari is more musically inclined than me, he is now the last one out, essentially.
“His rhymes just blow me away,” she adds. “I’ve always been a fan of his spoken word pieces and his poetry. Getting to engage with him on this musical level and creative level is a dream come true.”
As part of IndieFest 2025, re:Naissance will present Inferno: A Hip Hop Opera, a new work in development by Omari Newton and Amy Lavoie. Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday (November 28) and Saturday (November 29) at DigiBC Creative Tech Studio (577 Great Northern Way). For tickets and more information, visit Showpass.com.
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