2020-21
A selection of brazen works from composer/librettist team Zach Redler and Sara Cooper
Windows
Take a dark turn into the inner human psyche with this series of monodramas depicting “unstable individuals”. Windows offers a glimpse into a myriad of twisted fantasies, which surround a universal human experience - unrequited love. From fantasizing about bashing in the skulls of rude, ungrateful men, to taking too much pleasure in waxing off your car, Windows runs the gambit of depraved experiences.
Check out a promo video for our upcoming project, Windows
March 28th, 2021 (Director: Katie Kelley)
April 11th, 2021 (Director: Christine Oshiki)
April 25th, 2021 (Director: Nic Varela)
May 9th, 2021 (Director: Katie Kelley)
Breakfast
October 2020
The kitchen table can serve as a positive space for families to gather and foster connection. In Breakfast, however, this space becomes the epicenter of a family’s demise. This one-act chamber opera portrays a middle-aged couple, Ange and Gretta, and their adult child, Stu, trying to enjoy a morning meal together. There are only two problems: 1. They’re out of juice, and 2. They can’t leave their house, because the outside world is a post-apocalyptic hellscape of “dust and electrical storm”.
Meet the Creative Team
Sara Cooper
Librettist
Sara Cooper is a Playwright-Lyricist. Highlights: HoT, Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals (2020), New York Theatre Barn New Works Series (2020), concert, Dixon Place (2019), with composer Lynne Shankel; Polyanna, TV pilot, Grand Jury Prize, BOLT, Barnstorm Media (2020); Perpetual Sunshine & the Ghost Girls, National Alliance for Musical Theatre 15-Minute Musical Challenge winner (2020), with composer Lynne Shankel; The Memory Show, Benefit Reading for the Alzheimer’s Association, The Mercury Theater Chicago (2019), New Bard, London (2016), National Endowment for the Arts grant (2013), Transport Group at The Duke on 42nd Street (2013), Water Gate Media, Seoul (2012-2013), Barrington Stage Company (2010), National Alliance for Musical Theatre (2010), with composer Zach Redler; Elevator Heart, THML Theatre Company (2019), University of San Francisco (2018), Tisch New Musicals (2016) , with composers Julia Meinwald and Amy Burgess; Fault Lines, The Kennedy Center (2018), American Opera Initiative Fellowship, Washington National Opera (2017), with composer Gity Razaz; 92Y Musical Theatre Lab Collective (2017-2018); Queens Council on the Arts grants (2018, 2016); New York State Council on the Arts Individual Theatre Artist Commission (2015); Things I Left On Long Island, FringeNYC (2014), Overall Excellence Award in Playwriting (2014), Time Out NY Critics’ Pick (2014). Jonathan Larson Grant, American Theatre Wing (2014). MFA Graduate Musical Theatre Writing, Tisch School of the Arts. Sara currently teaches in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University and the Playwriting and Screenwriting Program at Purchase College. Dramatists Guild, ASCAP. http://saracooper.weebly.com
Zach Redler
Composer
Zach Redler is a music theater composer whose work has been performed in concert halls, opera houses and theaters around the world. Ben Brantley of the New York Times said, Zach’s “music becomes a character that both connects and divides the others." In 2014, the American Theatre Wing awarded him and Sara Cooper the Jonathan Larson Grant for their work together (The Memory Show, Loving Leo, Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, and WINDOWS). More of his favorite theater compositions include: Movin’ Up In The World, A Song for Susan Smith, ADAM, Emily Sutton, and, his most recent American Prize award winning piece, The Falling and The Rising (libretto by Jerre Dye). Currently, he is working on a chamber opera commission for Houston Grand Opera, a new series of pieces with Jerre Dye based on interviews with opera singers of color, and a piece for Opera on the James with text by young poets. In addition to composing for Music Theater, he: teaches as adjunct faculty at NYU Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program and Molloy College; teaches AP Music Theory at Greenwich Academy; is currently a masters student in Music Therapy at Molloy College; teaches private music, yoga, and meditation; loves cooking plant based meals for his family; and runs ultramarathons when time allows. Love to his wife Brittney and two children, Henry and Ellis.