Our Artists

Artist Statement

I’m an opera librettist and playwright based in New York City. My operas have focused on wrongful conviction, music therapy for dementia, and climate crisis—as well as intimate dramas about body dysmorphia and adoptive families. Sometimes it seems that my opera libretti are oriented toward macro social problems, while the plays reflect personal struggles or obsessions. Truth is, they’re always related. 

Science and social justice are frequent subjects. With composer Laura Kaminsky (As One) I wrote a chamber opera about music therapy and memory loss called Lucidity; Stefan Weisman and I created a solo opera about catastrophic ice loss in Greenland; and with my partner on Blind Injustice, Scott Davenport Richards, I’m developing a large-scale biographical opera about the life and activism of singer-actor Paul Robeson. In 2025 we brought Blind Injustice to the Rose Theater, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, then back home to Cleveland at Playhouse Square.

My plays include Saint Joe and Aristotle Punches Down. Previous operas include Blind Injustice at Cincinnati Opera; Three Way at Nashville Opera and BAM; and The Scarlet Ibis at Prototype festival. As a critic, my TV and theater coverage appears in The A.V. Club, Observer, 4 Columns, and American Theatre. I was the longest serving theater editor and head drama critic of Time Out New York, and I’ve written companion books about the Broadway hits Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Wicked, Jersey Boys and Spring Awakening.