Leah Hollingshead will play the Littler Daughter in Butler Opera Center's upcoming production of "Proving Up." This hour-long operatic thriller dramatizes the psychological and physical struggle of an American homesteader family in 1870’s Nebraska to acquire the deed for their new parcel of land. If they can fulfill the requirements of the 1862 Homestead Act, they will “prove up”.

Premiered in 2018, the piece brings Karen Russell’s haunting short story to life. The Washington Post called this latest collaboration between Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek “harrowing...powerful...a true opera of our time.”