Sat. Aug. 23

Final show! Deborah Henson-Conant – Grammy-nominated harpist and storyteller – has given a doozy of a title to her new one-woman show: “What the Hell are You Doing in the Waiting Room for Heaven?” We couldn’t help but ask how this came about. “My shows have always had me talking,” she says. “Stories that came out of music,; for this, the music (13 songs)  in the show comes out of the stories.”
     “Heaven has changed a bit,” Henson-Conant says, “and getting in the heavenly choir is a good way to get in. It’s a bit like ‘American Idol,’ with superstar judges like Elvis and Liberace.” Who’s in the waiting room? The members of the audience. Which means, the theatrical conceit, is “yes, you have died,” she says “and it’s very audience-interactive.” She’s termed in a “Transformational Music-Theatre Experience.” It takes place at the new Central Square Theater in Cambridge, on Wed.-Sat. August 20 - 23 at 8 p.m.

    “There is a no soul left behind policy,” Henson-Conant continues, “and I am a facilitator. I don’t play me. I’m Aubrey Giles, the dasting coach, and she’s got her own inner demons, even though appears to have it together. It’s not so much that she’s devious, but she’s got her own agenda and own personal problems.” Henson-Conant will, of course, be playing her harp; she’ll be sporting a halo and wings.
    “This image of heaven is bureaucratic,” she says. But’s it’s also like the ultimate reality game show or parody of a game show. It does, of course, require that you suspend a little bit of disbelief. Is it religious or anti-religious? Henson-Conant says a religious person caught wind of her project “and wrote to me saying they were offended. I wrote back that it’s not about a biblical heaven. It’s a secular vision of heaven and (it considers) some of the assumptions and the kind of hell we create for ourselves by judging ourselves and buying into the idea of competition.”
  “It’s really the stuff I’m examining in my life,  the idea of competition: If we’re not the best, do we matter at all? How do we go about mattering to ourselves and each other? People’s voices are important, the importance of raising your voice. Is the real criteria for getting into the heavenly choir having the greatest trained voice or something that lends humanity toour voice. This has a lot humor as well as humanity. Sometimes, I can’t access the most serious stuff without the component of humor. Sometimes humor is the only way you can reach these things. I feel the same about music. Sometimes, it’s the only way to get across a complex concept. … This is my idea of exploring ideas or questions I’ve had forever.”
    Henson-Conant says the musical took shape when she worked with the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative last fall. She was in an advanced writers lab group, with about a dozen others, “serious musical-theater writers.” The goal was to write something that “allows a full spectrum of emotion. It was scary and exciting.”
     Henson-Conant, who lives in the Boston area, has been playing what she calls “hip-harp” music for 20 years. She saves she’s probably known best as a jazz player, but blues important as well as flemenco. Her 2007 Grammy nomination was in the “classical crossover” category.
    The new Central Square Theatre – a black box space with a 150-200 capacity – opens in July. It was the project of two theater groups, the Underground Railway Theatre and the Nora Theatre. Tickets for “What the Hell …” are $30 ($16 for students and seniors, with other discounts offered on Henson-Conant’s website, www.hipharp.com.)

50 Massachuseets Ave., Cambridge, www.centralsquaretheater.org