Sara Cooper News

The Dramatists Guild Opera Committee's Librettist Initiative premieres the short film a?oeCredit the Librettist: Conversations with Today's Opera Makersa?? at Opera America's New Works Forum on Thursday, January 16 at 10am at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Avenue, 7th Floor, New York.

In what has become an annual ritual, a total of 40 established and emerging composers, lyricists, and librettists will converge on the Goodspeed campus from mid-January through mid-February 2020 to participate in the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals. The writing teams, representing 15 new musicals, will populate the campus, creating a truly exciting environment for discovery and inspiration.

Opera America will feature a public discussion with The Dramatists Guild's Opera Committee's Librettist Initiative at their New Works Forum on Thursday, January 16 at 10am at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Avenue, 7th Floor, New York.

Directed by Johanna McKenzie Miller, Cindy Gold and Cassie Slater star in The Memory Show - A tale of mother and daughter and their struggle to make sense of their relationship when faced with disease and hardship. The Memory Show combines evocative and powerful contemporary music with a humorous, touching and heartfelt examination of colliding perceptions, truths, desires and memories that are inherent in familial relationships.

Directed by Johanna McKenzie Miller, Cindy Gold and Cassie Slater star in The Memory Show - A tale of mother and daughter and their struggle to make sense of their relationship when faced with disease and hardship. The Memory Show combines evocative and powerful contemporary music with a humorous, touching and heartfelt examination of colliding perceptions, truths, desires and memories that are inherent in familial relationships.

THML Theatre Company continues its spring season, 'Opening Doors, Closing the Gap,' with Elevator Heart by Amy Burgess, Sara Cooper, and Julia Meinwald. The production will run from March 27th-April 7th as part of the Access Association Series at Access Theater.

THML Theatre Company continues its spring season, 'Opening Doors, Closing the Gap,' with Elevator Heart by Amy Burgess, Sara Cooper, and Julia Meinwald. The production will run from March 27th-April7th as part of the Access Association Series at Access Theater.

The new musical MECHANICAL by Jonathan Larson Grant recipients Mike Pettry (The Light Princess) and Sara Cooper (The Memory Show) will be presented as staged readings on September 25th and 28th, funded in part by a New Works Grant from Queens Council on the Arts.

This fall, contemporary opera producer AMERICAN OPERA PROJECTS (AOP) will present COMPOSERS & THE VOICE: SIX SCENES 2018, a showcase concert of opera scenes from nine artists emerging in the world of contemporary opera. Audiences will get a first look at six wildly different new works invoking diverse settings such as the Arab Spring in Tunisia, a post-apocalyptic future, and a modern college campus and exploring a multitude of themes and concepts, including the emotional minefield of solar flares, the dissonance of fundamentalism in urban and regional communities, and the nature and validity of Opera itself. The composers Matt Browne, Scott Ordway, Frances Pollock, Pamela Stein Lynde, Amber Vistein and Alex Weiser, and librettists Laura Barati, Kim Davies, andSokunthary Svay, were chosen by AOP to spend a year creating new works in its bi-annual fellowship program Composers & the Voice (C&V). The evening will be hosted by C&V Artistic Director Steven Osgood.

The new musical MECHANICAL by Jonathan Larson Grant recipients Mike Pettry (The Light Princess) and Sara Cooper (The Memory Show) will be presented as staged readings on September 25th and 28th, funded in part by a New Works Grant from Queens Council on the Arts.

Dana Aber's new solo show, BAGGAGE AT THE DOOR, performs this this today, Aug 30, 7:30pm at The Dixon Place. Baggage at the Dooris a wry peek inside the head of a seemingly well-adjusted trauma-queen- it is one woman's struggle to get through the terrors of her past and reclaim tenderness. With music written in collaboration with award-winning emerging composers, Baggage at the Dooris an autobiographical solo show addressing the critical moment when a trauma survivor realizes she may no longer be able to simply cope; when falling in love triggers her latent PTSD, she might be f*cked. This quirky and candid piece explores her attempts to break the PTSD trauma cycle and find strength to open the door toward a better life. TW: trauma TW: PTSD TW: humor.

Prospect Theater Company (Cara Reichel, Producing Artistic Director / Melissa Huber, Managing DIrector) is pleased to announce additional songwriters contributing material to its next IGNITE Series concert event, The Rave Revue. 

THML Theatre Company is proud to announce its second season: Opening Doors & Closing the Gap. This season will consist of a private reading series in the fall to launch the development of 3 new plays and 2 new musicals, and a two-month residency at The Secret Theatre in Long Island City to premier 3 plays, 1 musical, and 1 special musical event in spring 2019. The season will feature the work of 6 female playwrights, 1 female composer, and 4 female composer/lyricists.

Prospect Theater Company announces the line-up of artists participating in its next IGNITE Series event, an ongoing concert series featuring today's new voices shaping tomorrow's musicals.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announces 18 awards granted from their National Fund for New Musicals, and five awards granted from their Innovation & Exploration Grant program. The National Fund for New Musicals (NFNM) is a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals. Now in its tenth year, this year the Fund is providing grants totaling $58,000 to organizations across the country.

Texas Christian University's School of Music is proud to present the world premiere of a new opera, The Falling and the Rising, by contemporary artistic duo Zach Redler, composer, and Jerre Dye, librettist. The new opera paints a powerful portrait of the incredible resiliency, fortitude and heroism of our nation's wounded warriors, and is the culmination of a large-scale project commissioned by TCU together with the Arizona Opera, San Diego Opera, Opera Memphis, Seagle Music Colony, Seattle Opera and the U.S. Department of Defense. A product of the TCU School of Music's dedication to commissioning new music, The Falling and the Rising will premiere at 7 p.m. April 6 at Ed Landreth Hall and Auditorium and run for five performances.

This February, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club & Private Event Destination, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents Passing the Bechdel Test: Duets for Women That Aren't About Men, at 11:30 pm on February 9, 2018.

Composers and librettists were the stars Saturday night at The Kennedy Center's triple world premiere. For six years, the American Opera Initiative Festival (AOI) has selected three composer-librettist teams to create their own 20-minute operas under the guidance of a seasoned composer and librettist. This year, the teams worked with Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, who won a Pulitzer prize for their opera 'Silent Night' in 2011. The teams produced what Festival Director Robert Ainsley called, 'A snapshot of the contemporary American music scene.' It's an opportunity for creators and audiences alike to explore what is possible in opera today.

Washington National Opera (WNO) presents the sixth season of its acclaimed American Opera Initiative, a comprehensive commissioning program that brings contemporary American stories to the stage while fostering the talents of rising American composers and librettists. All of the program's world premiere operas are presented during the American Opera Initiative Festival weekend,January 19 21, 2018, all in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. The festival begins with the world premiere of a new hour-long work by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, Proving Up, on January 19 and 21, 2018, directed by Alison Moritz and conducted by Christopher Rountree, both in their WNO debuts. Three new pairings of opera composers and librettists Nathan Fletcher and Megan Cohen, Gity Razaz and Sara Cooper, John Glover and Erin Bregman offer new, one-act operas during the festival. Two semi-staged concert performances of each 20-minute opera are presented on January 20, 2018.