I am pleased to publish this book by Charles Deemer at Round Bend Press. Varmints is his fourth publication for RBP.
A tragi-comic opera of the Old West
"In the 1988-9 theater season in Portland, Oregon,
Steve Smith,
artistic director of Theatre Workshop,
produced a
retrospective of my work he called
“Charles
Deemer's Oregon.” This became a season of
three plays
at the Firehouse Theatre: revivals of The
Half-Life
Conspiracy and Waitresses; and concluding
with the
premiere of a new play, which became
Varmints. The latter was supported by a grant from
the Oregon
Arts Commission. The play opened on
April 28, 1989,
directed by Gary O'Brien.
A decade
later I became interested in writing for
opera. My
first project was the libretto to Dark
Mission, a 2006 opera by the composer John Nugent.
The project
went so well that John and I wanted to do
another, and
I suggested adapting my stage play,
Varmints. John, however, found career and life
demands so
pressing that he decided to concentrate
on the more
popular form of musical theater. I ended
up with a
libretto but no composer.
A draft of
the new libretto remained buried in the
mess of my
home office until I stumbled upon it a few
years later.
I read it and liked it. I began revising it,
and this
book is the result of the effort.
Here, then,
is a libretto that desperately needs
music. I
publish it in order to make it available to
composers.
Someone, I hope, will find the material
exciting
enough to bring it to musical life."
Charles
Deemer
October 5, 2012
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