Graduate Musical Theatre Writing
Donna DiNovelli
Adjunct Faculty Bookwriter |
Biography
Donna collaborates with artists around the world creating dramatic works for the stage, opera house, and radio. As a librettist, she has been commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the BBC, and Chanticleer, the all-male vocal ensemble. As a lyricist, she has written songs with Rachel Portman for the musical
“Little House on the Prairie”, with book by fellow alum, Rachel Sheinkin.
LHOP is scheduled for a second national tour after breaking box-office records at its premiere at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. She has collaborated with composers, Randall Eng, Steven Stucky, and Regis Campos. She is currently working with Christopher Theofanidis on a new opera to premiere in 2011. As a playwright, her work has been presented at the Mark Taper Forum, the Public Theater, and Duende Arts. Her songs have been heard at Joe’s Pub on several occasions including her prayer cycle: “
No God but Yearning”, music by David Rodwin. The genre-bending work, “
Florida” [music by long-time collaborator Randall Eng] has the distinction of being presented as an opera at the New York City Opera’s Vox series and as a musical at the Public Theater’s New Work Now! Festival, in the same season. She has written text for the Los Angeles Modern Dance and Ballet Company, “
The 12 Dancing Princesses” presented at the Ford Amphitheater with choreography by Naomi Goldberg Haas. NPR has produced her radio plays for the series,
Scribbling Women and her stage play, “
The First Eff” was excerpted and published by Heinemann Press for its “Monologues For Women By Women” series. She has won fellowships and honors from the Rockefeller Foundation [Bellagio, Italy]; Manhattan Theater Club; ASCAP; The National Musical Theater Conference, and the MacDowell Colony. She teaches playwriting at the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and bookwriting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program. She is a member of New York City Opera’s Librettists Project: “Words First? ” where she is writing a new piece with composer, Paola Prestini.
