EXCLUSIVE: The first family of Sons of Anarchy, Katey Sagal and Kurt Sutter, have set up their next collaboration. Tickets have gone on sale for Khorus Harmonia, a new limited-run choral concert conceived and led by Sagal, with a book and staging by Sutter. Choral arrangement and direction is being done by Steven Argila. Performances will be held at Hollywood’s Hudson Theatres beginning April 22 through May 2 with an April 21 preview. All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights & the Wounded Warrior Project. The show will run for 10 performances beginning April 22. Tickets can be purchased on the Hudson Theatres website.
Sagal describes the work as being about “music and feels, in 66 minutes. Music and singing centers me,” she said. “Makes me feel whole in broken times,” Sagal said. As for Sutter, she said, “Kurt loves challenging the artistic boundaries of any medium. We both crave the connection of community. That’s why we are doing this.”
Sagal is best known for her early turn as Peg Bundy on Married…With Children, and later the motorcycle matriarch Gemma in Sons, which Sutter and John Linson created at FX. But she sings like an angel and her origins include five years as one of Bette Midler’s Harlettes backup singers, and over the years she backed up the likes of Bob Dylan, Olivia Newton-John, Etta James and Tanya Tucker and released several albums on her own. She has been making records since the ‘80s in between series starring gigs — last was The Conners, and next up is an untitled Paramount Television Studios sitcom for NBC by Kari Lizer that pairs Sagal with Jane Lynch. They shoot the pilot this week.
Khorus Harmonia hatched organically, a lot having to do with the seismic changes contracting Hollywood and runaway production that is roiling the psyches of everyone who makes a living in its ecosystem.
“It started in 2025, when I was feeling extremely despondent about everything going on, as most of us are,” Sagal told Deadline. “I come from a music background, that’s what I’ve done since I was a kid. I had this idea that I wanted to put together a choir to feel better. I found 12 singers to come over to my house and I partnered with a vocal arranger, and started to find material that I felt had an emotional connection, not a literal connection, but an emotional connection to the way I was feeling. And before I knew it, it became 12 songs that were telling a story, not a literal story, but an emotional one. When the choir started in my living room, I had no intention of … I had no end game. I still don’t really know what the end game is except to spread a bit of what I know I need in my life to manage what’s going on, to bring something hopeful and uplifting. I thought, why not share it? I came to Kurt and said doing this in our living room is not enough. It just sounds so great. How do we present this in a way that we can share it in some sort of theatrical setting, when it’s not a musical, it’s not a play, and it’s not just a choir?”
Sutter saw it as a “struggle toward some sort of awareness that leads to a level of hope and community, rather than just having people standing in a semicircle singing. I come from theater, my MFA is in theater, and I equated it to almost like the use of the Greek chorus in tragedies in Greek plays. I ended up writing these little couplets as connective tissue between all the songs. About eight or so of these little interstitials, not even full monologues, that are somewhat poetic and that connect and begin and help tell the story of where it goes. And along with that, there’s a multimedia component going on behind us, which is basically the experience that hopefully will visually take you through some of what we’re all experiencing and, through music and visuals and tone, get us to where we need to go.”
Where does it lead?
“What we get to is an ending that is kind of a gift of, without sounding too precious, what it is we need to do right now, which is to not splinter, but somehow find each other because everything is just so splintered,” Sagal told Deadline. “And from where we come from in our lives, community has helped us so much. I mean, we’re both in recovery, and that is so much a part of our lives and that component is what gets us through shit.”
Adding the optimism so evident in his storytelling in The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, the Jake Gyllenhaal boxing film Southpaw and other works, Sutter said, “Worst case scenario, you come, and if you don’t get it, you gave up an hour and gave a donation to some worthy causes.”
Sutter has two possible series in his immediate future. There’s an untitled noir drama for MGM+ he’s created about a private eye plying his trade in the corrupt ‘50s Hollywood, and Nomad, a drama series he created with Chris Collins as a star vehicle for Jason Momoa. It puts Sutter and Collins back in Sons of Anarchy territory though this outlaw biker drama is set in New Zealand. MGM+ has the pilot script, and he and Collins have handed in the Nomad outline to Apple.
A longtime Sons fan, I had to ask…Sutter parted with FX with some acrimony a few years ago, but left behind a possible prequel series that focuses on the formation of the Sons by John Teller after he returned from Vietnam. Replete with a young Gemma and Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman) in the middle as SAMCRO evolved from noble origins to criminal pursuits and violence. There are unanswered questions on John’s demise, and the idealistic journals he left behind gave SOA its initial dramatic propulsion when found by John’s son Jax (Charlie Hunnam). So Kurt, any chance?
“[FX Networks Chairman] John Landgraf and I were always friends while I worked with him, but we’ve become really close friends since I left, and that’s been powerful for me,” Sutter said. “I know that he loves the IP, and I trust John. When I know it’s the right time for it, and it all makes sense, that’s when it’ll happen. When we have lunch, we’ll talk about the business and work, but it’s never about the pursuit of a single project. But look, I think there are still some stories to tell, and it would be fantastic to come back and be able to do that. I don’t think it’s completely off the table, but as things change, you embrace whatever direction you’re taken in.”
If one of those journeys is taken on a Harley-Davidson, there ought to be a rapt audience waiting.