MFA in Creative Writing Program
My interests as a writer have always had an international focus, and my plays, musicals and screenplays have often used theatrical conventions and forms from around the world to explore contemporary American subjects. For example, I have written a Japanese Noh Drama about Elvis Presley (Blue Moon Over Memphis); a musical comedy inspired by world mythologies and Saturday morning cartoons (Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing); and a contemporary drama about the aftermath of terrorism written in the form of a Greek tragedy (The Women of Lockerbie). My play Into the Fire, draws on the methods of magic realism from Latin American novels to dramatize life in an Alaskan fishing town.
This eclecticism informs my teaching. I try to expose my students to conventions and techniques found the world over in order to build a flexible tool kit that will help them create works that can speak to our global community. I take a “mechanics” approach in my teaching as well. I like to rip apart plays and movies to see how they work technically and I encourage my students to do the same. I believe that there are no limits to what you can do on the stage, screen or page. I also believe that the audience is quite adventurous. This comes from producing theatre in Alaska for 15 years (I was one of the original company members, and the producing director, of the Perseverance Theatre) where I learned over and over that audiences will follow you just about any place you want to go provided you prepare them through your craft for the journey.
I recently finished two new plays: The Poetry of Pizza, a comedy about love and The Blue-Sky Boys, a comedy about NASA's Apollo engineers. I am currently writing The Velvet Weapon, a backstage farce about the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslavkia and Rumspringa, a musical set in Amish country with composer Stephanie Satlzman. My play The Women of Lockerbie will be produced in Los Angeles in February 2007 by the Actor's Gang, who will take it on national tour in 2007/2008. It was originally produced off-Broadway with a grant from the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays after winning the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting competition. The play has also been translated and published in Greece and Poland and will be published and produced in Spain in 2008. Blue Moon Over Memphis is published in Japan by Musashino University and in the United States by Applause Books in The Best Short Plays of 2004. I have also written two screenplays, Covered Dishes (with a commission from Fox Searchlight) and Mexico in Alaska. My other plays include Signs of Life (Jane Chambers award; Pinter Review Prize for Drama gold medalist) and Into the Fire (Weissberger Award, published by Samuel French). In addition to Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing (written with composer Scott Richards), which won the 2001 Frederick Loewe Award, I have written two musical works with composer David Friedman: Goodbye My Island, a musical tragedy and King Island Christmas, an oratorio which has been produced all over the US and Australia. It was recorded in a cast album by Thomas Z. Shepard in 1999. My website is www.deborahbrevoort.com.
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Deborah Brevoort, MA, MFA