Sacramento-Born Hidden Tide Follows the River to a Larger Pacific Story
New story cycle draws creative inspiration from Chinese junk-built craft, transpacific passage, and female-led pirate history
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Skyrider Storyworlds has opened auditions for Hidden Tide, a theatrical pop ensemble preparing the 2027 release of its debut album and story cycle. The Sacramento-born project places its pirate mythology within a specific geographic and historical current: from the Sacramento River to the Delta, the Bay, the Pacific, and onward toward the maritime worlds that connected California and China.
The production is seeking singers, dancers, actresses, actors, musicians, and movement artists age 18 and older. Five principal roles are being cast—Mira Vane, Brine, Neris, Coralline, and Sable Fin—alongside an open ensemble call for crew, courtesans, musicians, and dancers.
Sacramento developed as a river port, connected through the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay to movement and exchange across the Pacific. Chinese immigrants and Chinese American communities became part of that water-linked history through fishing, agriculture, levee building, commerce, and settlement throughout Sacramento and the Delta.
The project’s research also follows the vessels themselves. Chinese junk-built craft worked Northern California waters during the nineteenth century. In 1955, six men sailed the traditional junk Free China roughly 6,000 nautical miles from Taiwan to San Francisco in 114 days. The vessel later spent years at Bethel Island in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta before its surviving hull returned to Taiwan for preservation in 2012.
Hidden Tide carries that research into fiction rather than reenactment. Its imagined ship is shaped by Pacific routes, shallow Delta waters, repair, migration, and exchange. Its women-led crew also draws structural inspiration from the pirate confederacies of the early nineteenth-century South China Sea, including the federation led by Zheng Yi Sao and Zhang Bao—an organized maritime power built from multiple fleets, rules, revenue, alliances, coercion, and control of trade.
“I kept thinking of Sacramento as inland until I followed the water. The river reaches the Delta, the Bay, and the Pacific. Once I followed that route, Hidden Tide became less about a fantasy nowhere and more about movement—who draws the map, who profits from the voyage, who gets called a pirate, and who gets remembered.” — Collin, Skyrider Storyworlds
Hidden Tide blends theatrical pop, cinematic storytelling, and ensemble performance. Selected artists may participate in original vocal recordings, music videos, rehearsals, and project-based live performances, with the long-term vision of regional, national, and international touring.
The project has also launched The Making of Hidden Tide, a creator’s log beginning February 1, 2026. Written from Collin’s first-person perspective, its dated entries trace the development of the concept, songs, characters, fictional world, and historical research.
Applicants can study detailed character journals, costume concepts, signature songs, and lyrics before submitting a recorded performance. Compensation is project-based. The audition deadline is October 31, 2026 (Halloween).
About Skyrider Storyworlds
Skyrider Storyworlds develops original music-driven worlds designed to live across recordings, cinema, performance, and immersive storytelling. Hidden Tide is its Sacramento-born theatrical pop ensemble and debut album story cycle.
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