Librettist
At Seattle Opera in 2021/22: Librettist, A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hometown: New York, NY
Seattle Opera Debut
Stephen Kitsakos is an opera librettist, theater writer and performing arts educator. Writing commissions include the NEA, NYSCA, American Opera Project, BMI Foundation, Florida Arts Council, ABC-CLIO, ASCAP Foundation, Seattle Opera, Catskill Watershed Corp. and the Episcopal Diocese of NY. With the composer Sheila Silver he wrote the libretto for The Wooden Sword (2009) and the cantata The White Rooster (2010) for the Smithsonian Institution. Other collaborations include The Other Voice (1998) with composer Robert Starer and Gail Godwin, Single Occupancies (2020) with composer Martin Hennessy and librettist Mark Campbell and The Pleasing Recollection, A Cabaret Opera (2022) for baritone Michael Kelly, with music by Hennessy. A contributing writer for The Sondheim Review, Kitsakos was a professor of Theater Arts at SUNY New Paltz, and currently teaches at UCLA Osher Institute and The Studios of Key West. Upcoming projects include the opera adaptation of Jedrowski’s Swimming in the Dark with Hennessy.
Last Updated: November 2022