david yezzi
Dirty Dan & Other Travesties
Praise for Firebird Motel (2007)
An original founder of Thick Description, lyricist David Yezzi’s text is elegant in its quiet simplicity. He sets an unsentimental tone early, in Nova’s introduction: “We who were born here and those who end up here can’t live in other places.” He pithily establishes character, whether it’s menacing Trooper (“Don’t keep me waiting / I hate to wait”) or isolated Ivan (“At night all I have is my radio / It’s all I need to know”). These earthy pronouncements permit him to later slip into more ethereal musings (“It’s almost peaceful, this waking oblivion”) without losing credibility.
Classics Today
Yezzi, a co-founder of Thick with Kelly and Martin, has written richly evocative lyrics about the desert and living in “waking oblivion” – with cleverly handled interior rhymes.
The San Francisco Chronicle
A haunting new chamber opera by composer David Conte and librettist David Yezzi.
Bay Guardian
Moments of extraordinary beauty . . . an intimate, even moving one-act accompanied by lush, appealing music. . . .
Oakland Tribune
The simplicity of David Yezzi’s libretto and the music of David Conte convert the Firebird Motel into a work of art that is sure to have many productions in other important cities long after its premiere in San Francisco.
San Francisco Tribune
March 2010
Dirty Dan & Other Travesties
Verse monologues by David Yezzi, with music by Chris Lee
The denizens of this off-kilter world—an wild-eyed short order cook in an all-night diner, a kid who cleans out dead people’s apartments, a failed painter with Oedipal problems, a hapless actor in a hilariously cocked-up production of Macbeth, and his ex-girlfriend who keeps a troubling secret—all of them share a sense of life’s absurdities (its travesties!) as well as its occasional redemptions.
Produced by Verse Theater Manhattan
Bowery Poetry Club
New York, NY
An opera by Cyril Deaconoff, libretto by David Yezzi
A workshop production of Act One
West Bay Opera
Palo Alto, CA
2003 & 2011
Firebird Motel
Music by David Conte
Words by David Yezzi
David Conte and David Yezzi’s one-act
chamber opera relates the existential
journey of a Mojave Desert motel desk clerk
(Ivan), who, after being visited by the ghost of his previous lover (Julie), finds himself with an opportunity for uncertain redemption with another (Corina) following a three-way shootout.
Thick House
San Francisco, CA
A new production of Firebird Motel was staged by the University of Delaware Opera Theater in October 2011
2007
On the Rocks
A verse play by David Yezzi
Directed by James Milton
With Joshua Spafford, Bill Tatum, Claire Winters & others
Set on the coast of Maine, this family drama relates the uncertain fortunes of a son in the wake of his father’s death and the grandfather who can do nothing to help him, as old New England succumbs to new money and fraying family ties.
Produced by Verse Theater Manhattan
Bowery Poetry Club
New York, NY
Upcoming: A new production of Firebird Motel in San Francisco, March 2012
February 2011
The Children of Children Keep Coming
A griot song by Russell Goings,
Directed by David Yezzi
West Chester University, West Chester, PA
With Clinton Ingram, Yolande Bryant, Russell Goings, and Sherrie D. Strange
