Publishing Day/Charles Deemer

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