EM Lewis, who is best known as a playwright has been named a Resident Artist in the new Composer Librettist Development Program that is part of American Lyric Theater and funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Lewis has been writing in Princeton for the past three years, and has returned to her home-base in rural Monitor, Oregon (just a few miles east of Woodburn).
Here are the particulars from the American Lyric Theater press release about this unique program, followed by more information about Lewis:
Lawrence Edelson, Producing Artistic Director of American Lyric Theater (ALT), announced today that the company has been awarded a $150,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support capacity building and the national expansion of the company's Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP), the only full-time professional mentorship initiative for emerging operatic writers in the country.
The
new grant will allow ALT to expand the CLDP from a 10-month program
offered annually, to a comprehensive three-year artist mentorship cycle
through which artists will not only receive personalized mentorship, but
also be commissioned to write new operas. In addition, newly acquired
HD videoconferencing equipment will increase the geographic scope of the
program, allowing gifted emerging artists with an interest in writing
for the opera stage to participate regardless of where they live.
Previously, the CLDP was only able to serve artists living in the
metropolitan New York City area. 8 new Resident Artists have been
selected to join the CLDP beginning in September, selected from a
national pool of applicants: 4 from the New York City area and 4 from
cities across the nation.
The 8 new Residents Artists who have been invited to join the CLDP this season are composers Clarice Assad (New York, NY), Elizabeth Lim (New York, NY), Evan Meier (Silver Spring, MD), and Kamala Sankaram (Brooklyn, NY); and librettists Rob Handel (Pittsburgh, PA), EM Lewis (Woodburn, OR), Jerome Parker (New York, NY), and Niloufar Talebi (San Francisco, CA). Biographies of the new Resident Artists can be found at:
The
new Resident Artists will be introduced to the public during a salon
featuring their work at the National Opera Center, located at 330 7th
Avenue in New York City, on Wednesday, September 18, 2013. The evening
will begin at 7:00 pm with a wine a cheese reception and an opportunity
for the public to meet the artists, followed at 7:30 pm by a short
performance.
Founded
in 2007, the CLDP is a tuition-free program that includes a core
curriculum of classroom training and hands-on workshops with some of the
country's leading working artists and has been regularly recognized for
artistic excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts. The
principal faculty for the 2013-2014 CLDP includes composer/librettist Mark Adamo, composer Paul Moravec, librettists Mark Campbell and Michael Korie, stage directors Lawrence Edelson and Rhoda Levine, and dramaturg Cori Ellison. Recent guest teachers and lecturers have included composers Kaija Saariaho, Anthony Davis, Ricky Ian Gordon, Nico Muhly, Stewart Wallace, Christopher Theofanidis, and John Musto, and librettists Stephen Karam, Donna DiNovelli, and Gene Scheer. Biographies of ALT's mentorship team and faculty may be found at:
In
addition to ongoing classes and workshops, composers and librettists in
the program have the opportunity to take part in residency
observerships at The Metropolitan Opera. Additional networking and
membership resources are provided through ALT's partnership with OPERA
America.
---
EM Lewis received the 2012 Fellowship in Playwriting
from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts, the 2010‐2011 Hodder
Fellowship at Princeton University, and both the Steinberg/ATCA New Play
Award for Song of Extinction and the Primus Prize for Heads from
the American Theater Critics Association. Her plays have been produced
around the world, and published by Samuel French. She is the Dramatists
Guild representative for New Jersey. Recent productions include Song of Extinction at the Guthrie and Hostos College; Heads at Missouri Valley College; Talking to Westfield at Premiere Stages; and the world premiere of Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday at HotCity Theater. Upcoming productions include Heads at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, Reading to Vegetables at University of Washington, and the world premiere of True Story at Passage Theater in New Jersey. Current projects include an epic Antarctic adventure story called Magellanica: A New and Accurate Map of the World, an intimate two-person play called The Stone Languages, and The Gun Show. Lewis
was born and raised in rural Oregon, lived in Los Angeles for quite a
while, and most recently was writing full-time in Princeton for the last
three years. She currently lives on her family’s farm in the beautiful
Pacific Northwest. Residence: Monitor, OR.
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