Deborah Brevoort

Deborah Brevoort is an American playwright, librettist and lyricist best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie. She teaches creative writing at several universities.

Early years

Brevoort was born in Columbus, Ohio, to Virginia and Gordon Brevoort. She is the oldest of three children. She graduated from Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She attended Kent State University, where she received a BA in English and political science, and an MA in political science.

Brevoort moved to Juneau, Alaska, in 1979. She worked in Alaskan politics, serving as a special assistant to Lieutenant Governor Terry Miller and Alaska State Senator Frank Ferguson. In 1983 she became the producing director of Perseverance Theatre and an actor in the company.

Brevoort attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she received her MFA in playwriting and New York University's graduate musical theatre writing program, where she received an MFA.

Career

Brevoort served as an artistic mentor to the NBO Musical Theatre festival in Nairobi, Kenya where she mentored new musicals written by Kenyan composers and writers. She also served as the Librettist Mentor for the Seattle Opera and American Lyric Theater in NYC in 2025. She was the 2024 Librettist Mentor for the American Opera Initiative at the Washington National Opera. In 2024 she was appointed a Fulbright Specialist in theatre, musical theatre and opera by the US State Dept., and conducted an opera writing workshop at the Seoul Institute of the Arts in South Korea in 2025. She teaches in the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program.

Personal life

Brevoort is married to the actor Chuck Cooper.^[1]

List of works

Plays

• The Drolls (2020)
• The Gorn Galaxy (2020)
• My Lord, What a Night (2019)
• The Comfort Team (2012)
• The Blue-Sky Boys (2009)
• The Velvet Weapon (2014)
• The Cheechako Treatment (2008)
• The Poetry of Pizza (2007)
• The Women of Lockerbie^[2][3][4] (2003)
• Blue Moon Over Memphis^[5][6] (2001)
• Into the Fire^[7] (2000)
• Signs of Life^[8] (1990)
• Last Frontier Club (1987)

Musicals

• Goodbye My Island with David Friedman (2004)
• King Island Christmas with David Friedman^[9] (1999)
• Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing with Scott Davenport Richards (1998)

Operas

• Quamino's Map with Errollyn Wallen (2022)
• The Knock with Aleksandra Vrebalov (2020)
• Dinner 4 3 with Michael Ching (2020)
• Murasaki's Moon with Michi Wiancko (2019)
• Albert Nobbs with Patrick Soluri (2018)
• Steal a Pencil for Me with Gerald Cohen (2012)
• Embedded with Patrick Soluri (2011)
• Altezura with Aleksandra Vrebalov (2008)
• The Polar Bat, a new adaptation of Die Fledermaus (2014)
• The Impresario, a new libretto of Mozart's comic opera for the Anchorage Opera (2015)

Screenplays

• Mexico in Alaska (1999)
• Covered Dishes (1997)

Honors and awards

• Campbell Opera Librettist Prize from Opera America, 2023
• Silver medal, Onassis International Playwriting Competition for The Women of Lockerbie^[10]
• Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award for The Women of Lockerbie^[11]
• Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theatre for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing and King Island Christmas
• Paul Green Award (National Theatre Conference) for musical book writing^[12]
• L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Into the Fire
• Jane Chambers Award for Signs of Life^[13]
• Performing Artist/Writer Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society^[14]