Voice, Gender, Character: Tessitura Film Screening and Q&A
Lydia Cornett and Brit Fryer, co-directors; Rebekah Peeples, Office of the Dean of the College
Tue, 2/24 · 4:30 pm—6:00 pm · 010 East Pyne
Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities (IHUM)
Join us for a screening of the short film, Tessitura. After the screening, we’ll be joined by co-directors, Lydia Cornett and Brit Fryer, for a Q&A moderated by Rebekah Peeples, Deputy Dean of the College and author of “Unchanged Trebles.”
Tessitura explores how contemporary opera singers navigate the traditional vocal categories of their art form, interweaving their personal stories with historical context. Central to this exploration is musicologist Dr. Naomi André, who provides context about the legacy of castrati and trouser roles – grounding the film in opera’s long association with dismantling gender binaries. But at the heart of the film are three singers on unique journeys: Breanna Sinclairé, a soprano dreaming of performing traditional leading roles; Lucas Bouk, a baritone searching for his place in modern opera repertoire; and Katherine Goforth, a rising star who is committed to redefining the opera’s boundaries.
A reception will follow the event.
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Bios
Lydia Cornett is a filmmaker, composer, and artist. Her films have screened at True/False, Camden, Rooftop Films, Sheffield DocFest, AFI Fest, Slamdance, BAMCinemaFest, Aspen Shortsfest, Palm Springs International Short Fest, Hamptons International Film Festival, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, where she was awarded the Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker in 2023. Her work has been distributed and featured by The New Yorker, POV Documentary, Vimeo Staff Picks, Nowness, Paper Magazine, Stereogum, Nylon Magazine, and Roger Ebert.
Lydia has held residencies and fellowships at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, the National Arts Club, BRICLab, the Jacob Burns Film Center, and UnionDocs. She has received support for her work from the Princess Grace Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Field of Vision, IF/Then Shorts, the NYC Women’s Fund at the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Greater Columbus Arts Council.
Lydia received a BA in History from Princeton University and an MFA in Art from the Ohio State University. She has taught filmmaking at The New School, is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, and recently completed a Fulbright fellowship to Hungary.
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Brit Fryer is an artist and filmmaker from Chicago’s South Side, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His unique approach to nonfiction storytelling centers on gender and queerness through process-forward and collaborative methods. Through intimate character stories and curious social experiments, he explores the inherited and traded narratives of queer and trans life as a challenge to cultural stasis, ambivalence, and threats to self-determination.
His most recent film, THE SCRIPT, co-directed with Noah Schamus, unpacks the boundaries of language and the role of performance in shaping and imagining a more expansive and gender-expansive healthcare system. The film was shortlisted for the 2023 IDA Awards and won the Creative Activism Award at the 2024 SIMA Awards. It is currently distributed on The Criterion Channel and The New Yorker.
He is also the director of CARO COMES OUT, which premiered on HBO Max after winning the Knight Made in MIA Award at the Miami International Film Festival. His other films include ACROSS, BEYOND AND OVER and TRANS·IENCE.
As a producer, his work includes Crystal Kayiza’s REST STOP, which won the Short Film Jury Award for US Fiction at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. His other credits include Lydia Cornett’s BUG FARM (PBS) and Casey Friedman’s PENTATARMEX RABITULAR (Short of the Week).
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Rebekah Peeples, deputy dean of the college, oversees the overall design and content of the undergraduate curriculum, including academic regulations, program offerings, and accreditation. She advises and supports academic departments and programs on academic policies and proposals, including proposals for the 250th Anniversary Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. Committee assignments include: Committee on the Course of Study, Committee on Classrooms and Schedule, Council on Teaching and Learning, and Committee on Appointments and Advancements in the Lecturer Ranks (C9).
Her oversight responsibility for the undergraduate curriculum encompasses Curriculum and Assessment, the Center on Science and Technology, the First-Year Seminar Program, the Office of Undergraduate Research, the Princeton Center for Language Study, the Princeton Writing Program, the Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship, the Program in Teacher Preparation, and Undergraduate Prizes. As deputy dean, she also serves as the University’s accreditation liaison officer to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Peeples previously taught in both the Department of Sociology and the Princeton Writing Program, served as the director of studies at Mathey College, and was an associate dean of the college from 2016-2025. She earned her Ph.D. from Princeton in sociology and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College. She is also the author of two books: “Wal-Mart Wars: Moral Populism in the Twenty-First Century,” published in 2014, and “Unchanged Trebles: What Boy Choirs Teach Us About Motherhood and Masculinity,” published in 2025.
