OPERA and OPERETTA,
This page hosts a collection of my operas.
Some have been self-produced or staged as readings, while others have not been performed at all.
Here you can find a selection of scripts and recordings available for download,
and at the bottom of this page, an explanation of some of my methods.

Tydrus the Twit

Premiered at The Bushwick Project for the Arts, Brooklyn, NY, on December 8 - 11, 2010.
Remounted for The Tank, New York, NY on February 3, 2011.

Tydrus the Twit is about a middle-Georgia punk's inability to get a job and his bad trip through a dream world filled with witches and hopeless love. The opera is an immersive musical world spanning the intense reality of a small, southern town and the dreams of its occupants.

The music for “Tydrus the Twit” combines instrumental music and unmusical sounds made by the mouth. The score specifically avoids the carefully notated practices of traditional opera, relying instead on procedural notation and musical games employing the entire ensemble. These practices, designed with an eye to creating an immersive theatrical environment, includes singing, blowing on bottles, laughing, clicking tongues, whistling, buzzing, grunting, yawning, and spitting.

Download the script.

Susie and Mark

Premiered at University of the Streets, New York, NY, on December 6, 2009.

An operetta about two lovers doing things that most lovers do: sleeping, drinking, eating, praying and confessing their love in odd ways. Every scene has different procedures to guide improvisations. The opera is for 1 dancer, 3 singers and 2 musicians (cello and piano) and was composed for performances in a small, dark and loud room.

Susie and Mark's score was designed to mentally distract the performers. For example, some of the musical instructions require performers to compose mental lists, count two different things at once and make a visual connection to the word one is singing.

Download the first two scenes.

Bottles, Nails, and Tambourines

Produced as a staged-reading at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY on May 19, 2009.

Bottles, Nails and Tambourines is an open-instrumentational opera consisting of three vignettes, Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Each vignette is constructed around the sound of a specific object: bottles blowing in heavenly wind, the stressful sounds of a nailgun, and tambourines rattling in hellfire. Utilizing a variety of simple musical games and procedures, the music of “Bottles, Nails, and Tambourines” is uniquely structured to allow a musical ensemble to peform independently of one another. The result is a compelling combination of ambiant/environmental music and the sound everyday objects.

Download the script.

How to Look at the Ocean (Now I am a Flower)

Premiered at the Old Gym, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY on December 13, 2008.

How to Look at the Ocean (Now I am a Flower) is a multimedia opera featuring bar bands and choruses, performance poetics and monologues, acoustic and electronic music, video and acting.

It is the story of a young songwriter, Scotty, learning his craft and trying to find his way to the top of the bar band circuit. Along his journey, he must come to terms with the demons inside of him: his guardian, Leviathan, his idol, Shades McGlenn, and his enemy, The Wrinkler. Will he overcome the pressures of being a young songwriter, or will he end up drunk at the same shady bar for the rest of his life?

A SELECTION OF SONGS FROM THE OPERA

1. LEVIATHAN
2. The Seashells Speak to Mother
3. Dancing Seashells
4. Whistling in the Wind
5. The Wrinkler
6. THIS WILL BE THE DAY THAT I DIE
7. There You Are!

Artist Statement

Theater is a process of seeking out the space between direction and understanding. Discoveries, whether personal or public, are always fleeting. As a performer begins making decisions about tone of voice, timing, and movement, these discoveries are either refined or discarded. In short, the performer assumes the role of a composer as he or she begins to dictate the sound and timing of a scene.

For the acting process to work within the confines of a musical setting, the music cannot constantly interfere with an actor’s search for timing and sound. But for some financial, historical or psychological reasons (a lot of people like opera the way it is), most opera embraces a limiting musical practice: that of musicians reading music and following a conductor/singer. This practice binds singers/actors to a very specific timing and sound while also limiting an instrumentalist's performance to that of interpreting a conductor’s direction.

Interactive musical theater attempts to improve the relationship between instrumentalists and actors. Musical instructions are presented in the script along with stage directions and dialogue. These instructions are not limited to traditional notation but are made up of a combination of musical techniques such as written procedures and musical games that are intended to release musicians from the time-binding, one-minded practice of western music notation. With more interpretive freedom, musicians are encouraged to interact with the drama on stage, to make dramatic decisions and to exist in the same reality as the actors (though the breach of a rational world is always within music’s power). By engaging performers with an evolving system of mentally diverse musical instructions, musicians focus on their approach to sound and explore new avenues of musical interaction.