Writer · Book, Music & Lyrics · Résumé
Commissioned by Boulder Ensemble Theater Company (BETC). Produced at Dairy Arts Center, Boulder, CO (Dec 2023) (20 Performances)
An unlikely band of rural misfits struggles to mount a small town’s 120th consecutive annual holiday pageant and earn their way into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Heritage Square Music Hall, Golden, CO (Nov 1996 – Jan 1997) (65 Performances)
Despite treacherous relatives, manipulative men, raging hormones and poor romantic judgment, a 19-year old orphan, Destiny Waits, comes of age in the highly sensational manner of bodice-ripper Regency romance fiction.
Heritage Square Music Hall, Golden, CO (Nov 2000 – Feb 2001) (85 Performances)
Based on “The Poor of New York” by Dion Boucicault (1857). Ruined Wall Street banker, Gideon Bloodgood, commits an opportunistic fraud to protect his fortune and is forced into a series of escalating crimes to cover his tracks.
Heritage Square Music Hall, Golden, CO (Nov 1995 – January 1996) (60 performances)
Based on the 1872 temperance drama by James McCloskey. When Ambrose Verney falters in his vow to shun the demon drink, the Spirit of Temperance visits a tragic fantasy upon him, previewing the drunkard’s inevitable demise.
Heritage Square Music Hall, Golden CO (Sept – Oct 1988); The Avenue Theater, Denver, CO (Aug – Nov 1990); Martin City Melodrama, Kansas City, MO (May–July 1991); Loveland Theater Company, Loveland, CO (July 1993); Preservation Playhouse, Midwest City, OK (Oct–Nov 1998)
In living black and white. Hard-boiled detective Nick Slade is framed for a murder he can’t be sure he didn’t commit. Set in 1940, his ‘investigation’ is fraught with femme fatales and riddled with blazing bullets in film-noir cinematic style.
Heritage Square Music Hall, Golden, CO (Jun–Aug 1988) (May–Aug 1992) (Feb–May 2007); Martin City Melodrama, Kansas City, MO (Jan – Mar 1991); Preservation Playhouse, Midwest City, OK (Sep–Nov 1997)
A plucky young girl finds danger and romance on the high seas when she disguises herself as a pirate lad to rescue her kidnapped mother and avenge her father’s murder.
Heritage Square Music Hall, Golden, CO (Feb – May 1992) (60 Performances); Preservation Playhouse, Midwest City, OK (Jul – Aug 1998); Horsebarn Dinner Theater, Laramie, WY (Jun – Aug 1999)
Wild West cliches are turned upside-down when not-so notorious cattle rustler and small-time grifter, Singlejack Royce, charms the heroine and prospers while the hero is convicted in his stead.
Heritage Square Music Hall (Apr – Jun 1991); Martin City Players (1992)
Ineffectual agency pen-pusher, Charles Guy, is thrust into field service to thwart an insane megalomaniac and his overbearing mother in their bizarre plan for world domination.
The Palace Theater at Avalon, Aurora, CO (Aug–Sep 1989)
Punch comes to life, takes wife, loses baby, kills dog, joins navy, gets arrested, faces trial, tricks hangman, cheats death, annoys St. Peter, goes to hell, loses money, closes quickly.
Original performance poetry provides a lyrical narrative context and theatrical production values for classically spooky dramatic repertoire. Our comical (g)host, Ezekiel McCobb, is awakened on Halloween night by trick-or-treaters (the audience) pounding on his front door. He eagerly joins them on their rounds and leads the group “beyond the tracks, behind the mill, through tall dead grass and up the hill” to the haunted home of Old Count Mildew. The Count appears and welcomes his visitors on a tour that includes “The Thing in the Attic” and “Bats in My Basement.” Our host returns to guide us back home again, but not without a final detour through the graveyard at the chiming of midnight, just in time for the “Zombie Jamboree.”
Colorado Symphony Orchestra, CO (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002); Littleton Symphony Orchestra, CO (2002); Dallas Symphony Orchestra, TX (2004); Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, PA (2006, 2013); Detroit Symphony Orchestra, MI (2007, 2008, 2011, 2014); Utah Symphony Orchestra, UT (2010); Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, CAN (2010); Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, FL (2013)
Original cowboy poetry provides a lyrical narrative context and theatrical values for repertoire evoking the American West. Humorous and educational depictions of life in the archetypal “Old West.” Set in Texas prior to the Civil War, a restless young man gives up farming in Tennessee and moves out west to work in the saddle. Multiple characters are portrayed through lyrical monologues, including the Pioneer Traveler, String Bean the Camp Cook, Dusty the Trail Rider, the Yellow Kid, and the Old Cowpoke.
Colorado Symphony Orchestra, CO (2002, 2004); Denver Young Artists Orchestra, CO (2004); Dallas Symphony Orchestra, TX (2006); Vail Valley Music Festival, CO (2006); Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, TX (2006); Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, PA (2008); Texarkana Symphony Orchestra, AR (2008); Utah Symphony Orchestra, UT (2009); Idaho Falls Symphony, ID (2009); Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, AL (2013); Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, FL (2013); Detroit Symphony Orchestra (2016)
Merges lyrical humor and verbal acrobatics with stunning visual images and evocative orchestral music to explore the grandeur and frailties of our little blue planet and the need for effective stewardship. Hosted by a whimsical “Earthropologist,” embark on an entertaining and educational tour of earth’s essential systems and wonders, including a literally breathtaking recitation of the entire animal kingdom in under three minutes.
Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, PA (2008); Broomfield Civic Orchestra, CO (2010)
An absent-minded cellular biology professor and mucus expert turns out to be the wrong person to host an educational concert about music, but the mixup isn’t discovered until the show is underway. Refusing to accept defeat (or leave the stage) he takes command of the orchestra and recruits the antagonized conductor as reluctant assistant in a ridiculous yet perfectly apt explanation of all things musical.
Colorado Symphony Orchestra (2000, 2003, 2005, 2011)
The course of true love never did run smooth… if it ever had, the world’s poets and composers would have gone out of business. A tragi-comic celebration of the human heart and art’s oldest inspirations — unrequited love, unbridled passion, unwise choices and unbelievably bad timing! Slam/Beat performance poetry commissioned by Marin Alsop for her tribute to Leonard Bernstein to accompany Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, plus comic narration to Dan Kellogg’s Pyramus and Thisbe.
Colorado Symphony Orchestra, CO (2002); Denver Philharmonic Orchestra, CO (2011); Orchestra Iowa (tour), IA (2013); Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra (2016)
Lyrical narration created for brass choir festival work, commissioned by composer Eric MacIntyre. First person lyrical narrative conveying the visceral experience and cultural significance of a child attending William Cody’s Wild West Show.
University of Colorado Horn Ensemble (2014)
Member: Dramatist’s Guild, Actor’s Equity, ASCAP