Yearly Archives: 2018

17 posts

OPERA America

In the News REB+VoDKa+ME

My wonderful collaborator Julia was one of eight composers award a Discovery Grant for Female Composers by OPERA America to support further development of REB+VoDKa+ME! We are so excited and honored that our show has been recognized in the opera world, especially in the company of friends and colleagues. We can’t wait to dive back into our theatrical Tumblr over the next year! Check back here for more updates as planning gets underway…

Read a little bit more about both the organization and the grant:

OPERA America draws on resources and expertise from within and beyond the opera field to advance a mutually beneficial agenda that serves and strengthens the field through programs in the following categories: creation, presentation and enjoyment. The association provides members with an array of publications and online resources, regional workshops, an annual conference and network-specific services such as conference calls, listservs and direct contact with staff with expertise in opera production, administration and education. OPERA America provides members with tools to maximize the effectiveness of financial and human resources, expand the scope of repertoire and programs, and extend their reach to new and diverse audiences. Founded in 1970, OPERA America has an international membership that includes nearly 150 Professional Company Members, 300 Associate and Business Members, 2,000 Individual Members and over 16,000 subscribers to its electronic news service.

OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program provides financial assistance to identify, support, and help develop the work of female composers writing for the operatic medium, raising their visibility and promoting awareness of their compositions to the field. Funding for this program is provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Program for Commissioning Women in the Performing Arts.

While you wait for more information, you can always tide yourself over by listening to the new complete demo!

REB+VoDKa+DEMO, part 2!

REB+VoDKa+ME

The entirety of (the current draft of) REB+VoDKa+ME is now recorded. Give it a listen!

This combines our two sessions with 24 amazing singers:

Ally Bonino, Jack Brinsmaid, Jackie Colquitt, Jessica Fisher, Holly Gould, Hanako Greensmith, Sam Heldt, Angelina Kelly, Kelsey Lake, Adam Lawrence, Lily Lester, Allison Lian, Evan Maltby, Lauren Marcus, Elexis Morton, Matthew Oster, Sam Paley, Angela Pardini-Gomez, Allison Posner, Katie Rodgers, Daniel Saulle, Libby Servais, Rich Silverstein, and Emily Walton…

Plus our two amazing engineers, Chris Gilroy and Andrew Zinsmeister!

A Decade of Collaboration

Other Stuff Updates

Ten years ago today, I sent Julia an email.

We’d written a few songs together at warp speed after grad school that we both liked. So when my friend Jeremy Gold Kronenberg told me he was looking for a short musical to direct for Prospect Theater Company but only had 6 weeks to develop it, I asked Julia if she might want to apply our speed songwriting skills to a full project. We cranked out a 35 minute musical and loved what we wrote together. So when I read an article the next month about a group of high school girls in Gloucester, Massachusetts who were rumored to have made a pact to get pregnant together, I asked Julia if she thought it might be our first full-length musical.

Now we’re getting ready to start our seventh full-length musical next month while we’re out of town rehearsing for the world premiere of another show. And in the intervening decade we’ve been lucky enough to build a network of actors, singers, musicians, directors, designers, and friends to help us explore limitless empathy, terrible decision-making, building legacies, and growing up.

Here’s to what’s to come in the next 10 years of our collaboration!

2018 Interstate 73

In the News Writers Group

Another year, another new project!

I’m proud to be a member of the 2018 Interstate 73 Writers Group and excited to get started on a new project with Julia. We get to join (clockwise from the top) Michael R. Jackson, Eleanor Burgess, Daniel K. Isaac, Emily Feldman, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Gary Winter, and Amina Henry for a year of creating! Read all about them here.

More details about the new project will be coming soon, but for now we’re just basking in the talent we get to observe for a whole year. Thanks to the wonderful folks at Page 73 for including us in this year’s group!

Something New, Something Fun, Something Blue is Something Done!

Readings Something Blue

After a little over five years of off-and-on writing, we now have a first full draft of Something Blue! And we had the honor of hearing it outloud for the first time with some wonderful new friends – director Sash Bischoff and actors Robbie Collier Sublett, Rachel Flynn, and Ryan Everett Wood.

What started as a challenge to write the smallest show we could imagine became a three-person, hushed, complicated, human musical.

We’re already on to rewrites for the next draft, and we’re looking forward to sharing the show sometime very soon!