Deborah Brevoort

Deborah Brevoort is an award-winning author of plays, musicals and operas. She is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which is produced all over the world. Her latest play, My Lord, What a Night, will re-open Ford’s Theatre in 2021 after the pandemic. It had a rolling world premiere at CATF, Orlando Shakes and Florida Studio Theatre.  Her other plays include: The Poetry of Pizza (Purple Rose Theatre, Mixed Blood, Cal Rep, Virginia Stage and others), The Blue-Sky Boys (Capital Rep, Barter), The Comfort Team (Virginia Stage), The Velvet Weapon,  Into the Fire, and Signs of Life.  During the pandemic, she was commissioned by Florida Studio Theatre to write The Drolls, and was invited to join their Playwright’s Collective. Blue Moon Over Memphis, her Noh Drama about Elvis is touring in a traditional Noh production by Theatre Nohgaku.  She’s a two-time winner of the Frederick Loewe award in musical theatre for King Island Christmas with composer David Friedman and Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing with Scott Richards.  She wrote Crossing Over, an Amish hip hop musical with Stephanie Salzman. Deborah has written nine opera librettos; three have won the Frontier’s competition at Ft. Worth Opera: Embedded and Albert Nobbs with Patrick Soluri and Steal a Pencil for Me with Gerald Cohen. Murasaki’s Moon, with Michi Wiancko, was commissioned and produced by On-Site Opera, NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and ALT. In 2020 she was commissioned by Glimmerglass Opera to write The Knock with Aleksandra Vrebalov and Dinner 4 3 with Michael Ching for the Decameron Opera Coalition. Her plays are published by Applause Books, Samuel French, DPS and No Passport Press. She teaches at Columbia University and NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and serves as a mentor to the NBO Musical Theatre workshop in Nairobi, Kenya.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
https://www.deborahbrevoort.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/deborah.brevoort/

MORE ABOUT ME
My one piece of advice for the American theatre is to follow the example being set by the opera world where they are "walking the talk" on gender parity. Opera America funds -- substantially -- 20 new operas written by women every year. The funding is tied to production. They have just started a new program for BIPOC composers and librettists where they are funding 10 projects a year, again substantially. This has had a radical impact on the field. Operas by women are now being regularly produced on American opera stages. It is one of the reasons why I am now working in the opera more than the theatre.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Deborah is currently working on several musicals projects: Bone Fire, a full length opera with composer Errollyn Wallen, commissioned by the Chicago Opera Theatre (2022 premiere); Loving, a musical about the Loving vs. State of Virginia story, with composer Diedre Murray; Tiffany Girls, a musical about Clara Driscoll, the uncredited creator of the famed Tiffany Lamp, with composer Julianne Wick Davis; and The Art of Being Remmy, a family musical, based on the book by Mary Zisk, with Rona Siddiqui. 

KEYWORDS
​Comedy, Farce, Historical, Tragedy, Musical, Opera