Based on the novel by Will Weaver, Memory Boy is a gripping family drama set in a post-apocalyptic Minnesota. Following a series of devastating volcanic eruptions, the world is blanketed in ash and social structures have collapsed. The story follows 16-year-old Miles Newell and his family as they flee the chaos of the Twin Cities for the relative safety of a cabin in the Northwoods.

Miles, the titular "Memory Boy," possesses a unique ability to recall survival skills and navigate a landscape that has become unrecognizable. To reach safety, the family must rely on Miles’s memory and a part-bicycle, part-sailboat contraption he built called the "Princess Ali ." At its heart, the opera is a story of resilience, exploring how a family learns to survive as a single unit by listening to the wisdom of a younger generation navigating an old-world landscape.