Kate Douglas Returns to Ancram with “My Dog is Dead”

The dog is dead. The marriage is shaky. The brother is suspicious. And the woman—well, she can suddenly read minds.

Such is the premise of "My Dog is Dead," the latest genre-defying chamber musical from Kate Douglas, the Brooklyn-based composer, playwright, and performer who returns to Ancram Center for the Arts August 7-10 after last year’s haunting and harmonic "Centuries." Her new piece, part of Ancram’s Plein Air Plays 3.0—a triad of site-specific short works staged under the wide open sky at locations around Ancram—is a shape-shifting song cycle set in a 1950s rural farming community and performed outdoors, with Douglas and two fellow musicians accompanying themselves live.

The other works to be performed as part of Plein Air Plays 3.0 are "Rupert’s Birthday" by Ken Jenkins, featuring Danielle Skraastad and "Same Picture, Different Poses," created and performed by Kyle Driggs/Logan Kerr/3AM Theatre.

“It's kind of like a short 'Twilight Zone' episode,” Douglas says of "My Dog is Dead." “It starts in a fairly mundane world and moves into something stranger. Hopefully there’s a little space for magic and mystery and awe.” She’s joined by collaborators Ben Ferguson and Luke Wygodny—both actors and musicians—who, alongside Douglas, straddle the twin demands of live instrumentation and intimate storytelling. “It’s that classic thing where you're patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time,” she says. “They're inside of that with me fully.”

The piece centers on Mary, a housewife whose telepathic abilities emerge mysteriously following the death of her family dog. Her husband, a small-town politician, sees the revelation as a political asset; her brother sees it as delusion. Things get strange. Possibly supernatural. Possibly dangerous.

“I don’t want to give too much away,” Douglas says, playfully dodging spoilers. “But yes, there might be a twist.”

Originally, the piece was about a 19th-century paleontologist whose dog was killed by a falling boulder. While the setting has been updated to the 1950s, its core remains grounded in grief. “It’s about the transformational power of loss,” she says. “When we lose someone—human or more-than-human—it changes us. We’re never quite the same. It’s not a lament exactly, and not dreary. I’d call it surreal, strange, and kind of funny.”

Musically, "My Dog is Dead" leans on folk storytelling traditions but resists easy categorization. “Mostly folk,” Douglas says, “but also not easily categorized. There are parts of it that don’t quite live in any one genre.” That refusal to fit neatly into a box is something of a signature for Douglas, whose recent accolades include the Jonathan Larson Grant—a coveted award for musical theater creators that she calls “entirely emboldening.” In an era of financial precarity and artistic risk, the grant has given her “permission to double down on daring.”

Daring is something Ancram Center seems to specialize in. Known for its adventurous programming, the rural Columbia County venue gave Douglas the space to develop Centuries last year, a concert-theater hybrid that wove together folk, soul, and choral elements to tell a multi-generational story of grief and renewal. “Ancram is a singular artistic haven,” Douglas says. “They invest in their artists. And they’ve created a space where risk-taking is not just tolerated—it’s encouraged.”

Kate Douglas, left, and the cast of "Centuries" performing at the Ancram Center for the Arts in 2024.

The natural setting plays an integral role in "Plein Air Plays 3.0," with "My Dog is Dead" being performed on an outdoor platform, near a barn (the exact location is a bit of a surprise for ticket holders). Douglas, who cut her immersive-theater teeth with Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, finds site-specific performance creatively exhilarating. “I learned a lot about pushing past the boundaries of proscenium theater,” she says. “There’s something thrilling for both audience and artist when you’re in a space that feels alive.”

Like "Centuries," "My Dog is Dead" is a work-in-progress that feels fully alive. “We’ve only been rehearsing a few days, and it’s already evolved dramatically,” Douglas says. “The feedback loop in the room is growing the piece in real time. And once the audience comes in—that’s another layer entirely. I’m so curious to see what resonates.”

At just under 30 minutes, the piece is compact by design, but Douglas hints there’s more to come. “I want to live in it longer,” she says. “I’d love to build this out into a full-length concert piece.”

In the meantime, Douglas is also juggling two major projects: one a commission from theater company The Civilians and Princeton University, where she’s been dramaturging a new show on campus, and another in the form of a new EP she’s writing with "Centuries" co-star Ryan Amia. “There’s a lot brewing,” she says. “Some I can’t talk about yet—but it’s all very exciting.”

If "My Dog is Dead" is any indication, Douglas is more than a singular talent—she’s a harbinger of where musical theater is heading: genre-fluid, emotionally resonant, strange and beautiful and, yes, sometimes haunted. Just like the best dogs.