Spiral bound
Spiral Bound is a new song cycle about the women
who live as muses in our memory.
With an all-star female cast, band, and production team, Spiral Bound was performed at Joe's Pub on November 6th, 2023, and again at Racket NYC on September 25th, 2024, directed and choreographed by Ellenore Scott. In December 2025, Spiral Bound was performed at Lincoln Center, the first work of Miranda's Lincoln Center Presents partnership.
banD
size
5 - 8
Time
period
Timeless
Cast
Size
4 - 8
THEATRE
TYPE
St Anns, Park Ave Armory, Joe's Pub
Duration
90 min
comps
SIX, but with music
by Carole King
and Erykah Badu
CREATIVE TEAM
Miranda
Ferriss Jones
Librettist, Composer,
Co-Lyricist
Rich Edelman
Original Poet / Co-Lyricist
Laura Benanti
Creative Producer
Yair Evnine
Arrangements
Sujin Kim-Ramsey
Vocal Arrangements
ABOUT SPIRAL BOUND
Spiral Bound follows a contemporary singer-songwriter, paralyzed by heartbreak and unable to create, who is drawn into Sappho’s Heartbreak Hotel—a liminal space where the nine Ancient Greek Muses guide mortals in transforming longing into song. Tasked with answering a single question—who was she?—the Protagonist’s attempts to name the woman who broke her heart summon fragments of Sappho, which direct the Muses to conjure songs from their vast canon of desire, memory, and myth. Brought to life through music, dance, and moments of theatrical magic, the piece unfolds as an ensemble-driven ritual, with the Muses ever-present—shifting between storyteller, guide, and witness—as they initiate the Protagonist into a lineage of longing that insists heartbreak is not an end, but a portal back to creation.
Based upon poems written from 1967-1974 by sculptor and poet, Richard Edelman, Miranda Ferriss Jones’ newest song cycle, SPIRAL BOUND, explores the inaccessible loves of our memories. The poems, filtered through Miranda’s own experiences and imaginings, emerge as musicalized vignettes, recollections of the unrequited and doomed loves of our youth.
Spiral bound at pace
In winter 2026, Jones wrote a new script, which was developed in spring 2026 through a two-month, ensemble-driven collaboration with PACE’s Sands College of the Performing Arts. This process expanded Spiral Bound into a fully realized musical culminating in an eight-show sold-out run with a nightly waitlist of over 50 students.
