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“[Thom] Sesma said he is “so excited” for audiences to see “Black Swan,” which he called an “emotional thriller” that is “not like any other Broadway musical” he has ever seen or of which he has been a part.”

“We really tell [Nina’s] story through dance, and through the body, and seeing the experience of her body on stage,” [said associate director Benita de Wit]. “Anything heightened, anything going to emotional extremes, I think tends to translate well to the stage.”

“What is so thrilling about watching Melanie [Moore’s] Nina is you’re watching someone who is discovering something about themselves for the first time, and who is then in pursuit of that thing, even if the pursuit takes them over the cliff,” [said playwright Jen Silverman.]

““It’s been so wonderful to be in a creative room that thrives on stepping into the darkness instead of avoiding it,” [Tory] Trowbridge said. “It isn’t, ‘Oh, the audience isn’t going to like this, it’s too dark.’ Instead it’s, ‘Where can we uncover the darkness and walk right into it.’ ”

The first time I saw the movie of Black Swan, I was a grad student in a small theater in Iowa City. I remember the dismayed joy of the audience as Nina pulled a black feather out of her shoulder, how other moments of body horror (that hang-nail!) unleashed a collective visceral groan.

“There’s something about Black Swan in the context of a theater,” [playwright Jen] Silverman says, “where an audience is gathered live…with the people really pushing themselves to the furthest limit. And it isn’t a trick of photography—it’s actually happening right in front of you.”

“We’re asking questions about all the kinds of pressure that come to bear on a human…,” [playwright Jen] Silverman said.

“The body can do so much to tell a story,” [director and choreographer Sonya Tayeh] says. “So, [Black Swan] has dancing from this traditional point of view, and it morphs into another world.”