About the work
I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky is a "songplay" by John Adams to a libretto by poet June Jordan, developed at director Peter Sellars's instigation. It premiered on 11 May 1995 at the Zellerbach Theatre, University of California, Berkeley; its title quotes a survivor of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Plot
Seven young Los Angelenos from different social and ethnic backgrounds see their intertwined stories of love, identity and justice tested by the 1994 earthquake; a central conflict turns on the arrest of the character Dewain under California's "three strikes" law. Twenty through-composed songs carry the entire action.
Cultural significance
Adams and Sellars deliberately built the songplay as a hybrid of opera and musical, drawing on gospel, rhythm and blues, blues and Broadway idioms. With roughly 80 performances in cities including Montreal, New York, Helsinki, Paris and Hamburg, it became one of Adams's most widely toured stage works outside his operas proper.