William Blake’s Inn is a song cycle composed by Lacuna member Dale Lyles. It is based A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, a book of children’s poetry by Nancy Willard which won the Newbery Award in 1982, becoming the first book of poetry to be awarded the most prestigious prize in children’s literature.
In January of 2003, members of Lacuna were privileged to take seventeen students to Ayrshire, Scotland, to sing with the Scottish Opera’s international cast of The Tale o’ Tam, a setting of Robert Burns’s “Tam O’Shanter.” They decided then that they would work towards a similar project in Newnan.
In September of that year, Nancy Willard gave her permission for Dale Lyles to set her book to music. He finished composition in September of 2006 (having taken time off in the meantime for other projects.)
In May of 2007, Lacuna staged a “cardboard and hot glue” version of the piece to demonstrate to community leaders what a staged production of William Blake’s Inn might look like. Although people were complimentary, no one seemed interested in moving forward with the project, and the work was shelved.
Now Lacuna is the artistic arm of the project to produce A Visit to William Blake’s Inn‘s world premiere in March 2025.
Interested in being a part of this world premiere? Sign up at bit.ly/WilliamBlakesInnSignups — we’ll email you the details for your selected interests!
Our timeline is:
- Summer & Fall 2024: Workshops to brainstorm and design the show; for a look at this collaborative process, see the blog posts for the 2007 version. You might also like to look at our Rules for collaboration.
- January 2025: auditions
- March 2025: World premiere
our partners
We are pleased to be working with the following organizations to make William Blake’s Inn a reality:
Backstreet Community Arts
Southern Arc Dance Company
…and your organization?
the work
William Blake’s Inn
a piece for chorus, soloists, orchestra, puppets, dancers, and everyone.
We visit the Inn and through the course of a day or so meet the odd and magical inhabitants, including William Blake himself.
- Prelude | mp3
- William Blake’s Inn for Innocent & Experienced Travelers | score | mp3
- Blake’s Wonderful Car Delivers Us Wonderfully Well | score | mp3
- A Rabbit Reveals My Room | score | mp3
- The Sun and Moon Circus Soothes the Wakeful Guests | score | mp3
- The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives | score | mp3
- The King of Cats Orders an Early Breakfast | score | mp3
- The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud | score | mp3
- Two Sunflowers Move into the Yellow Room | score | mp3
- The Wise Cow Makes Way, Room, and Believe | score | mp3
- Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way | score | two-piano score| mp3
- When We Come Home, Blake Calls for Fire | score | mp3
- The Marmalade Man Makes a Dance to Mend Us | score | mp3
- The King of Cats Sends a Postcard to His Wife | score | mp3
- The Tiger Asks Blake for a Bedtime Story | score | mp3
- Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor | score | mp3
- Epilogue (underscoring) score | mp3