The Bodice Ripper Project is a one-woman, digital show by Maren Montalbano that was performed in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The show explores sexuality through the lens of humor, storytelling, and original music. At the intersection of romantic tropes and operatic gender power dynamics, Maren weaves in her own story of childhood sexual abuse and how reading romantica helped her heal.
While she was in lockdown, Maren also created a podcast. In the podcast, Maren tells stories she wrote backstage at the opera – silly, sexy romance scenes that were originally meant to entertain her fellow choristers as they waited to go on stage. Those stories have become a tool with which Maren examines the world around her, sharing lessons in self-confidence and vulnerability.