Deborah Brevoort

Deborah Brevoort writes plays, musicals and opera librettos. In 2023, she was awarded the Campbell Opera Librettist Prize from Opera America. She serves as the Librettist Mentor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative project. She is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which is produced internationally, and for numerous comedies and dramas produced at theatres across the US.

Deborah has written 10 opera librettos. She is an alum of American Lyric Theater’s (ALT) Composer/Librettist development program. Her latest opera is THE KNOCK with composer Aleksandra Vrebalov, about military wives, which was co-commissioned by Glimmerglass Opera where it was made into a live-action film, which is available on YouTube. It received its stage premiere at Cincinnati Opera in 2023 where it was extended due to audience and critical acclaim. QUAMINO’S MAP, about American enslaved men who fought for the British during the Revolutionary War, premiered at the Chicago Opera Theater in 2022, composed by Errollyn Wallen. MURASAKI’S MOON, with Michi Wiancko, was commissioned by NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Arts, On-Site Opera and ALT and premiered at the Met in 2019. It will be produced at the Hub City Opera is 2024. EMBEDDED, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, with composer Patrick Soluri, was also commissioned by ALT. It won the Frontiers competition at Ft. Worth Opera, where it was produced in 2016. It premiered at the Fargo-Moorhead Opera. STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME, with composer Gerald Cohen, won the 2016 Frontiers competition at Ft. Worth Opera and premiered at Opera Colorado in 2018. A recording of the opera will be released in 2024 on the Sono Luminus label. ALBERT NOBBS, with composer Patrick Soluri, won the 2019 Frontiers Competition at Ft. Worth Opera and was a finalist for the 2018 Pellicciotti Prize in Opera composition. During the pandemic, she wrote DINNER 4 3, with composer Michael Ching, based on Boccaccio’s The Decameron, for an opera web-series, Tales from a Safe Distance, produced by the Decameron Opera Coalition and Fargo Moorhead Opera. THE POLAR BAT, a new adaptation of Die Fledermaus set in the world of Alaskan reality TV, was commissioned and produced by the Anchorage Opera where she also wrote a new libretto for Mozart’s comic opera THE IMPRESARIO. BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS, her Noh Drama about Elvis Presley will tour Japan in 2024 in a traditional Noh production with orchestrations by Richard Emmert.

Deborah is a two-time winner of the Frederick Loewe award in musical theatre for COYOTE GOES SALMON FISHING with Scott Davenport Richards and KING ISLAND CHRISTMAS with David Friedman. She is currently writing the book and lyrics for LOVING with composer Diedre Murray and for TIFFANY GIRL, about Clara Driscoll, the true creator of the Tiffany Lamp, with composer Julianne Wick Davis. Deborah serves as an artistic mentor to the NBO Musical Theatre festival in Nairobi, Kenya. She teaches in the graduate musical theatre writing program at NYU and the MFA playwriting program Columbia University.

Visit Deborah’s Website: https://www.deborahbrevoort.com