Deborah Brevoort

Deborah Brevoort is a contemporary American playwright and librettist known for writing plays, musicals, and operas that combine several theatrical practices from around the world to depict contemporary American subjects. These include a Japanese Noh drama about Elvis Presley (Blue Moon Over Memphis); a musical comedy inspired by world mythologies and Saturday morning cartoons (Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing); and a contemporary drama about the aftermath of terrorism written in the form of a Greek tragedy (The Women of Lockerbie) She worked in Alaskan politics, serving as a special assistant to Lieutenant Governor Terry Miller and Alaska State Senator Frank Ferguson. In 1983, she became the producing director of Perseverance Theatre and an actor in the company.

Brevoort attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she received her Master of Fine Arts in playwriting. and Into the Fire was developed at the 1998 O'Neill Playwright's Conference. The musical premiered at Perseverance Theatre in Alaska in 1996, directed by Molly Smith, after winning the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition It continues to be produced in the US and abroad and has been translated in multiple languages.

King Island Christmas Brevoort's next work was King Island Christmas, a musical based on the Alaskan children's book by Jean Rogers, with composer David Friedman. Using the form of the oratorio, it tells the story of a remote Alaskan village struggling to fetch their priest from a boat in the freezing Bering Sea. The musical was optioned by a group of New York producers in 2001 who released a cast album with Tony winner Chuck Cooper and the late Marin Mazzie, produced by Thomas Z. Shepard. The musical has been extensively produced in the US, after winning the 1998 Frederick Loewe Award in musical theatre at New Dramatists, where she was a member playwright. where she blended the American story of Elvis Presley with conventions from 14th-century Japanese Noh theatre to create an electronic, Americanized Noh that tells the story of an Elvis fan who makes the pilgrimage to Graceland on the anniversary of Elvis's death. after being developed in the Women's Playwright's Festival at Centenary Stage in NJ. It has gone on to numerous productions at American regional theatres including Mixed Blood, Virginia Stage

The Blue-Sky Boys Brevoort received a commission in 2003 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology project to write The Blue-Sky Boys and Florida Studio Theatre in 2025/26.

The Comfort Team During the surge in Iraq, Brevoort was commissioned by Virginia Stage to write a play about military wives in the Norfolk, Virginia area. After conducting interviews with over 40 wives from various backgrounds, regions, and branches of the armed services, she wrote The Comfort Team, inspired by their stories. The play follows a group of Navy wives who are left behind while their husbands are away at war. It received an artistic excellence grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

My Lord, What a Night Brevoort received the Liberty Live commission from NJ's Premiere Stages in 2015 to write My Lord, What a Night, a historic drama inspired by the night that the singer Marian Anderson gave a concert in Princeton, NJ, and was refused a room at the Nassau Inn because she was Black. Albert Einstein took her in for the night, creating a controversy, but beginning a lifelong friendship. After the premiere at Premiere Stages, Brevoort expanded the play into a full-length version to include the events that led to Anderson's historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial. The expanded play was produced as a rolling world premiere at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Theatre and Florida Studio Theatre from 2019-2021 through the National New Play Network. a comedy built on the comedy routines performed by the drolls, street performers in Puritan England. It tells the story of the outlaw actors and musicians who performed in the streets of London during the Puritan crackdown and the rediscovery of Shakespeare, who was almost lost when theatres were closed.

Opera Brevoort began writing opera librettos in 2009 after being accepted into the first Composer Librettist Development program at the American Lyric Theater in New York where she received training in libretto writing from Mark Adamo, Cori Ellison, Daniel Catan, Anthony Davis, Larry Edelson and, Michael Korie. Embedded takes the Cask of the Amontillado and sets it in the age of terrorism and the world of broadcast journalism. It tells the story of a famous but aging TV anchor who learns she will be replaced by a younger anchor and agrees to be embedded in a terrorist cell in order to save her job. The opera premiered in a critically acclaimed production at the Fargo Moorhead Opera in 2014, directed by Sam Helfrich, It was also presented in the Frontiers Festival at Fort Worth Opera. It premiered at Opera Colorado in 2018 where it was recorded for the Sono Luminus label.

Murasaki's Moon The Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition, The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated, was the impetus for Murasaki's Moon, commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, On Site Opera and American Lyric Theater. The opera, written with Michi Wiancko, tells the story of Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting in the Imperial Court of 11th-century Japan, who was catapulted to fame when she wrote The Tale of Genji, the world's first novel. It was presented as a site-specific opera in the Astor Court in conjunction with the Met's Genji exhibit.

The Knock In 2023, Brevoort's next opera was The Knock, written with Aleksandra Vrebalov. Inspired by interviews conducted with military wives, the opera tells the story of a group of wives who go through a dramatic crisis that changes their lives. It was commissioned by Glimmerglass Festival. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of the opera house, and the cancellation of the premiere, Glimmerglass filmed the opera as a live-action movie which premiered on Veteran's Day in 2021 and is now available on YouTube. in a critically acclaimed production directed by Alison Moritz who later staged it at Central City Opera in Colorado.

Albert Nobbs Brevoort and composer Patrick Soluri were one of four teams commissioned to enter to the 2018 Dominic Pellicciotti competition for opera composition at the Crane School of Music in Potsdam NY.

Dinner 4 3 When COVID-19 closed the opera houses, a coalition of ten opera companies launched The Decameron Opera Coalition, to create Tales from a Safe Distance , an on-line opera web series based on Boccaccio's The Decameron, a collection of 100 stories told during the Black Plague in the 14th century. Brevoort and composer Michael Ching were commissioned by Fargo Moorhead Opera to write Dinner 4 3 for the series, received the Freddie Award for Excellence in Opera, and was included in the Library of Congress's Performing Arts COVID-19 Response Collection.

The Polar Bat and The Impresario Brevoort was commissioned by the Anchorage Opera to create new adaptations of two classic comic operas: Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, and The Impresario by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Polar Bat transports Strauss's comic masterpiece from Vienna to Anchorage, Alaska, where Hollywood Producers are holding auditions for the latest Alaskan Reality TV show. It premiered at the Anchorage Opera in 2014, in a production that featured a dog sled team from the Iditarod.

List of works Plays The Drolls (2020) The Gorn Galaxy (2020) My Lord, What a Night (2019) The Comfort Team (2012) The Blue-Sky Boys (2009) The Velvet Weapon (2014) The Cheechako Treatment (2008) The Poetry of Pizza (2007) (2003) Blue Moon Over Memphis (2001) Into the Fire (2000) Signs of Life (1990) Last Frontier Club (1987)

Musicals Goodbye My Island with David Friedman (2004) King Island Christmas with David Friedman (1999) Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing with Scott Davenport Richards (1998)

Operas Quamino's Map with Errollyn Wallen (2022) The Knock with Aleksandra Vrebalov (2020) Dinner 4 3 with Michael Ching (2020) Murasaki's Moon with Michi Wiancko (2019) Albert Nobbs with Patrick Soluri (2018) Steal a Pencil for Me with Gerald Cohen (2012) Embedded with Patrick Soluri (2011) Altezura with Aleksandra Vrebalov (2008) The Polar Bat, a new adaptation of Die Fledermaus (2014) The Impresario, a new libretto of Mozart's comic opera for the Anchorage Opera (2015)

Screenplays Mexico in Alaska (1999) Covered Dishes (1997)

Teaching Brevoort is a teacher of playwriting, musical theatre and opera. She taught in the Columbia University MFA Playwriting program from 2004 to 2024 and Goddard College's MFA in Creative Writing from 2004 to 2021. She continues to teach in the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where she has been teaching since 1998.

Brevoort also works in the opera and musical theatre fields as an educator. She served as an artistic mentor to the NBO Musical Theatre festival in Nairobi, Kenya, founded by Eric Wainaina to create new musicals written by Kenyan composers and writers from 2018 to 2021. She served as the Librettist Mentor for the Washington National Opera's "American Opera Initiative" at the Kennedy Center from 2024 to 2025 and 2026–27. She is also the Librettist Mentor for the Seattle Opera's Creation Lab. and the American Lyric Theater's Composer Librettist Development Program In 2024, she was appointed a Fulbright Specialist in theatre, musical theatre and opera by the US State Department.

Publications

Plays Blue Moon Over Memphis. Waseda Foundation, Tokyo, Japan, 2024 The Poetry of Pizza & The Velvet Weapon: two comedies by Deborah Brevoort, with introductions by Maggie Cahill & Benny Sato Ambush. No Passport Press 2017 The Women of Lockerbie & The Comfort Team: two plays by Deborah Brevoort, with introductions by Roberta Levitow and Chris Hanna, No Passport Press, 2014 Signs of Life, Samuel French, 2007 The Women of Lockerbie, Dramatists Play Service, 2005. Into the Fire, Samuel French, 2000. The Women of Lockerbie, Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, (Onassis International Cultural Prizes Committee) Athens, Greece 2001 (in English & Greek)

Anthologies Blue Moon Over Memphis, a Noh Drama about Elvis Presley, in "Intercultural Japanese Noh Theatre: Texts & Analyses of English-Language Noh" edited by Richard Emmert & Ashley Thorpe, Bloomsbury Methuen (London), 2024. The Women of Lockerbie in "Il Teatro e la Pietas (Theatre & Pietas)," Universita degli Studi di Trento, Italy, 2017, by Kiara Pipino. (In Italian.) Blue Moon Over Memphis, Applause Books in "The Best American Short Plays," 2006. Blue Moon Over Memphis, in the Journal of the Noh Research Archives, Musashino University, Tokyo, Japan 2004. (In Japanese & English) The Women of Lockerbie, in New Dramatists 2001 Anthology, Smith & Kraus, 2002 The Women of Lockerbie, in "Dialog," the theatre journal of the International Theatre Institute of Poland, 2003. (In Polish)

Honors and awards New Jersey Council on the Arts playwriting fellowships, 2025, 2018, 2007 Campbell Opera Librettist Prize from Opera America, 2023 New York Foundation on the Arts (NYFA) Playwriting Fellowship, 2002 Admitted to New Dramatists, 1994 Silver medal, Onassis International Playwriting Competition for The Women of Lockerbie Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award for The Women of Lockerbie Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theatre for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing and King Island Christmas Paul Green Award (National Theatre Conference) for musical book writing L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Into the Fire Jane Chambers Award for Signs of Life Performing Artist/Writer Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society