New York Playwright, Opera Librettist Comes to Silver City Artist in Residency Program

New York-based playwright, opera librettist, theatre critic, and arts journalist David Cote is the current visiting artist with the Resident Artist Program in historic Silver City, Nev.

While he's here in August and September, he hopes to draft a 70-minute, spoken, dramatic monologue for a male performer about carpentry, family, and faith. You can learn more about his creative process during a free, public talk at the Brick at 108 E Proctor Street in Carson City this Thursday August 22, 2019 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in an event that also includes a talk by Chicago-based sculptor Nicole Beck.

The event is part of Carson City's Department of Arts & Culture's Summer 2019 Artist Lecture Series. In addition, Cote will offer two workshops for Silver City locals at the Silver City School House on Friday Aug. 23 and Friday Aug. 30 from 6:30pm-8:30pm. He'll support locals in writing a skit about their community.

David Cote's degree from Bard College is in Drama/Dance. While at Bard, he also studied early modern English literature, concentrating on Shakespeare's Henriad, and he also studied voice, directing, and 20th-century drama and wrote dramatic scenes, poetry, and academic papers.

After graduation, Cote moved to New York, where he joined Purgatorio Ink Theater and acted in several plays at notable Off-Off-Broadway venues such as the Vineyard Theatre and La MaMa E.T.C. He performed in plays such as Foreman's Pearls for Pigs (1997), a production that opened at Hartford Stage and toured France, Italy, Los Angeles, Portland, Dartmouth and New York City.

By 2003, Cote was theater editor and chief drama critic for Time Out New York, where he reviewed a wide range of plays, musicals and experimental pieces from Broadway to Off-Off-Broadway until 2017. As an arts journalist, Cote has also written theater reviews and news for the media company Observer, covering Broadway openings and other theater news.

After more than a decade of acting and journalism, Cote decided to branch into more creative writing areas, namely, plays and opera libretti. His play Otherland was a finalist in the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference. Since 2007, he has been writing on commission for various theater and opera companies. His world premieres to date include three operas, a song cycle, and a monodrama. His latest opera was Blind Injustice, with music by Scott Davenport Richards, directed by Robin Guarino. The run of the opera was sold out and it received glowing reviews from the Wall Street Journal, Opera News, CityBeat, etc. It was based on true stories of people who had been wrongfully convicted and freed through the Ohio Innocence Project.

Cotes plays and other libretti have had numerous readings and workshops. His work has been generously supported by the MAP Fund and the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust. In 2009 he won a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony. His plays and operas have been commissioned, developed or produced by Gingold Theatrical Group, HERE, Beth Morrison Projects, Second Movement, Fort Worth Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Cincinnati Opera, American Opera Projects, American Modern Ensemble, Austin Chamber Ensemble, Nashville Opera and others.

He's also written three books about the making of hit Broadway musicals including Wicked: The Grimmerie Jersey Boys,and Spring Awakening: In the Flesh.

What Is the Resident Artist Program?

The Resident Artist Program in Silver City is about creating, viewing, and discussing visual art, music, poetry, and theater, but it's also about the ripple effect that's inevitable when people connect around arts programming. It's about sharing the gifts of time and attention with one another.

The Program provides a venue for those from other parts of the U.S. and the world to engage with the people of northern Nevada through the arts. Those creating in the performing, visual, or literary arts are invited to apply to reside for up to three months at McCormick House, a geodesic dome designed in the 1970s by artist and University Nevada Reno art professor Jim McCormick. In exchange, visiting artists offer public performances, exhibitions, readings, workshops, etc. in Silver City and other northern Nevada communities. The Program is privately funded and directed. For more information, contact director Quest Lakes at quest@theodata.com.