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Deborah Brevoort is an American playwright, librettist and lyricist best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie. She teaches creative writing at several universities.
Brevoort was born in Columbus, Ohio, to Virginia and Gordon Brevoort. She is the oldest of three children. She graduated from Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She attended Kent State University, where she received a BA in English and political science, and an MA in political science.
Brevoort moved to Juneau, Alaska, in 1979. 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. Her first two plays were produced at Perseverance: The Last Frontier Club and Signs of Life. Signs of Life was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation playwriting grant and was later published by Samuel French.
Brevoort left Alaska to attend Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she received her MFA in playwriting. She moved to New York City to attend New York University's graduate musical theatre writing program, where she received an MFA.
Brevoort is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, a story about the aftermath of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, told in the form of a Greek tragedy. It was inspired by the laundry project undertaken by Lockerbie women, who washed the clothes of the victims and returned them to the families. In 2001 it won the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. [1] It premiered off-Broadway in 2003 by the New Group and Women's Project. It was produced in London at the Orange Tree Theatre in 2005, at the Theater Royal in Dumfries, [2] at the Actor's Gang in Los Angeles in 2007 and the Will Geer Theater in Santa Monica in 2012. [3] It is published by Dramatists Play Service and No Passport Press and has been translated into nine languages. There have been over 800 productions of the play worldwide.
Brevoort's plays and musicals often use theatrical conventions and forms from around the world to explore contemporary American subjects. She wrote a Japanese noh drama about Elvis Presley titled Blue Moon Over Memphis; a musical comedy inspired by world mythology and Saturday morning cartoons titled Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing, with composer Scott Davenport Richards; and a holiday musical written in the form of an oratorio, titled King Island Christmas, with composer David Friedman, based on the Alaskan children's book of the same title. She used the methods of magic realism from Latin American novels to dramatize life in an Alaskan fishing town in her play Into the Fire.
Brevoort's other plays include the following:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brevoort was commissioned by the Florida Studio Theatre to write a full-length comedy called The Drolls about the outlaw actors and blackamoors who kept the theatre alive during the Puritan crackdown in England in the 1600s.
She was also commissioned to write The Gorn Galaxy, a 10-minute Zoom play, for the Flash Acts Festival, produced by Arena Stage, Georgetown University, the Center for Global Engagement and the American Embassy in Moscow. It was produced in both the US and Russia.
Brevoort writes opera librettos and the book and lyrics for musicals. Her musical works include the following:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brevoort was commissioned by Fargo Moorhead Opera and the Decameron Opera Coalition to write Dinner 4 3, a 10-minute opera with composer Michael Ching, inspired by a story from The Decameron, as part of a new opera web series called Tales from a Safe Distance. It was later produced on stage at Fargo Moorhead Opera and at L'Arietta Opera in Singapore.
She was also commissioned by the Chicago Opera Theatre to write Quamino's Map with Belizean British composer Errollyn Wallen, where it premiered in 2022.
Brevoort was commissioned by the Anchorage Opera to write The Polar Bat, a new adaptation of Die Fledermaus, which was produced there in 2014. In 2015, the Anchorage Opera commissioned and produced her new libretto for Mozart's The Impresario.
Brevoort wrote the book and lyrics for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing with composer Scott Davenport Richards, which won the Frederick Lowe Award. It was produced at Perseverance Theatre in Alaska, directed by Molly Smith, and at the University of Houston, produced by Broadway producer Stuart Ostrow.
Brevoort also wrote King Island Christmas, based on the Alaskan children's book by Jean Rogers, with composer David Friedman. It also won the Frederick Lowe Award. A cast album featuring Tony winner Chuck Cooper and the late Marin Mazzie was produced by 12-time Grammy winner Thomas Z. Shepard. There have been over 50 productions of the musical in the US, Australia and Canada.
She is a member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, Opera America, TCG and the National Theatre Conference. She was invited to join the Playwright's Collective at Florida Studio Theatre in 2020.
In 2023 Brevoort was awarded the Campbell Opera Librettists Prize from Opera America.
Brevoort served as the librettist mentor for the Washington National Opera's American Opera Initiative at the Kennedy Center. In 2024–25 she will serve as librettist mentor at the Seattle Opera's Creation Lab. She is also an artistic mentor to the NBO Musical Theatre Initiative in Nairobi, Kenya. She teaches at New York University in the graduate musical theatre writing program. She taught for many years at Columbia University and Goddard College. [4]
Brevoort is married [5] to the actor Chuck Cooper.
Douglas Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Known for his extensive work in the American theatre in both plays and musicals, he has received numerous accolades including the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award.
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Marnie Andrews is an American stage and television actress ER, JAG, Murder One, "Reasonable Doubts", (1991-1993), The Wonder Years and made for TV movies "Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story," (1991), Shattered Mind (1996), among others. Much of her stage work comes from the development of new plays. She has originated numerous roles in world premieres, several as a member of New Jersey Repertory Company. Andrews is also a director of theatre. As a singer and lyricist, she has composed with Christopher McHale, and Tyler Orr Sterrett.
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Mark Campbell is a New York-based librettist and lyricist whose operas have received both a Pulitzer Prize in Music and a GRAMMY Award. Mark began writing for the stage as a musical theatre lyricist, but turned to libretto-writing after he premiered Volpone, his first full-length opera in 2004 at Wolf Trap Opera Company.
Jacqueline Goldfinger is an American playwright and librettist best known for her award winning plays Babel and Bottle Fly. She also wrote the popular textbook, Playwriting with Purpose: A Guide and Workbook for Emerging Writers.
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