Say It Ain't So, Joe is a chamber opera in two acts by Curtis K. Hughes inspired by text drawn from the public record of the 2008 United States vice-presidential debate where vice presidential candidate Joe Biden is addressed by Sarah Palin in a similar manner as the famous quote referring to Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Commissioned and produced by Guerilla Opera, Say It Ain't So, Joe premiered in Boston on September 19, 2009, at the Boston Conservatory Zack Box Theater.
"When watching the US Vice Presidential debate in 2008, I was struck by the extraordinary musical contrasts between the voices of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, as well as the convergence of two such fascinating life stories, both containing tragic, heroic, and comic elements.
The audience for my opera Say it ain't so, Joe will experience a surreal and fractured vision of that remarkable encounter, as well as brief glimpses of other contemporaneous events and political figures, with some fantastical digressions."
– Curtis K. Hughes[1] Prelude Scene One: January 2009: The Palin Residence.