During the Monday dress rehearsal of the opera Dog Days, cast members navigated a post-apocalyptic world in which characters are forced to make difficult decisions as their resources dwindle. They are visited by a social outcast known as the “Dog Man,” who, as the name implies, dresses and acts like a dog, and their interactions with him and each other bring into question how far one can go before one loses one’s humanity.

While the story has a post-apocalyptic setting, according to Bienen master's student Marin Tack, who plays the character of Lisa in one of the two alternating casts, the questions it asks are relevant to our present time. “Where is the breaking point between humanity and being animalistic?” she said. “In society even today you can cross that line or things can go to that place.”

Dog Days premiered this Thursday in the Shirley Welsh Ryan Opera Theatre and will continue through Nov. 24. Shows run at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. on Sunday. The show is directed by Joachim Schamberger.