Perpetual Sunshine & the Ghost Girls
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Lynne Shankel
Arts Research: Incubation & Acceleration Grant, University of Michigan (2024)
Festival of New Musicals, Village Theatre (2023)
Richard Rodgers Award (2022)
National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival of New Musicals (2022)
Rhinebeck Writers Retreat (2021)
New York Theatre Barn New Works Series (2021)
Featured in NYU Faculty Concert (2021)
5X15, Beck Center and Baldwin Wallace, dir. Victoria Bussert, MD Matthew Webb (2021)
National Alliance for Musical Theatre 15 Minute Musical Challenge Winner (2020)
Perpetual Sunshine & the Ghost Girls is an all-woman+ through-composed musical theatre piece about the capitalist exploitation of workers’ bodies and rights in the face of a national public health crisis. Featuring an original 1920s-2020s mashup score, the show is based on the true story of the women who worked in the factories and were knowingly poisoned by the United States Radium Corporation, and who fought back, changing United States labor laws forever.
Photograph: Perpetual Sunshine & the Ghost Girls, 5X15 at Beck Center for the Arts / Baldwin Wallace University, 2021 - photo credit MD/editor Matt Webb, director Victoria Bussert, Baldwin Wallace University, and Beck Center for the Arts (2021)
HoT
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Lynne Shankel
Festival of New Musicals, Goodspeed Musicals (2022)
New York Theatre Barn New Works Series (2020)
Johnny Mercer Writers Grove, Goodspeed Musicals (2020)
NAMT Festival of New Musicals Finalist (2019)
National Alliance for Musical Theatre “Other Shows You Should Know” Jukebox (2019)
Concert reading, Dixon Place (2019)
HoT is an all-women+ through-composed feminist adaptation of Helen of Troy. It examines the commodification of women throughout our lifetimes as Helen is first sexualized, then held to unrealistic beauty and gender-based standards, and finally vilified and discarded--until she decides to stand up and take her power back.
New York Theatre Barn New Works Series video still (2020)
The Memory Show
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Zach Redler
LAMB Arts Regional Theatre (2022)
Benefit Reading for the Alzheimer's Association, The Mercury Theater Chicago (2019)
New Bard Productions in London, England (2016)
Original Cast Recording by Yellow Sound Label (2015)
Off-Broadway, Transport Group at The Duke on 42nd Street, dir. Joe Calarco, MD Vadim Feichtner (2013)
Water Gate Media in Seoul, South Korea (2012)
Barrington Stage Company (2010)
National Alliance of Musical Theatre Festival of New Musicals (2009)
A two-person comic tragedy about the troubled relationship of a woman who has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and her estranged daughter who moves back home to take care of her.
Transport Group production poster (2013)
Windows
Libretto by Sara Cooper
Music by Zach Redler
Lowbrow Opera Collective, dir. Katie Kelley, Christine Oshiki, Nic Varela (2021)
Developed in Composers & The Voice at American Opera Projects (2011-2012)
American Opera Projects production (2013)
Staged faculty concert, NYU Contemporary Music Ensemble (2013)
Magnanimous featured at Opera Memphis (2013)
A set of 6 monodramas about unrequited love.
Jorell Williams in Lowbrow Opera Collective’s digital production (2021)
If I Can’t Dance to It, It’s Not My Revolution
Teleplay by Sara Cooper
BlueCat Screenplay Competition Semi-Finalist (2021)
ScreenCraft TV Pilot Script Competition Semifinalist (2021)
Emerging Screenwriters Genre Competition Semi-Finalist, Top 25 (2020)
Page Turner Screenplays, Quarter-Finalist (2020)
Book and Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Lynne Shankel
In development
If I Can’t Dance to It, It’s Not My Revolution is a rock musical about the immigration, pro-labor, anti-war, and reproductive rights activism, and ultimate deportation, of the enormously influential—and equally controversial—anarchist Emma Goldman.
Elevator Heart
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Amy Burgess and Julia Meinwald
NYC Premiere, THML Theatre Company, Access Theater, dir. Dev Bondarin, MD Anessa Marie (2019)
University of San Francisco, Performing Arts and Social Justice Department (2018)
Reading, The Tank (2017)
Featured, Good To Go Songwriter’s Showcase, Prospect Theater Company (2017)
Workshop, Tisch New Musical Theatre Workshop, New York University (2016)
Concert, The Producers’ Club (2016)
Grant, Queens Council on the Arts (2016)
Concerts, Dixon Place (2015)
A modular musical theatre piece built of vignettes that explore the diverse experiences of women+ in the 21st century.
Elevator Heart University of San Francisco, Performing Arts and Social Justice Department, photo credit USF (2018)
Polyanna
Teleplay by Sara Cooper
BOLT, Barnstorm Media, Grand Jury Winner (2020)
TSL Free Screenplay Contest, Finalist (2019)
“A Type A romantic polyamorist struggles to keep her rapidly expanding family from falling apart.”
Breakfast
Libretto by Sara Cooper
Music by Zach Redler
Lowbrow Opera Collective, dir. Christine Oshiki (2020)
New York University, workshop (2012)
Metropolis Opera Projects (2011)
Virginia Arts Festival, Breakfast (2011)
“A one-act opera about a dysfunctional family at the end of the world.”
Fault Lines
Libretto by Sara Cooper
Music by Gity Razaz
World Premiere at The Kennedy Center, dir. Andrea Dorf McGray (2018)
American Opera Initiative commission, Washington National Opera (2017)
“A one-act opera about the abuse of power in a dysfunctional family and the maid who works for them in a small American town during World War II.”
Things I Left On Long Island
Play by Sara Cooper
New York International Fringe Festival, dir. Noah Himmelstein (2014)
FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award in Playwriting (2014)
Time Out New York Critic’s Pick (2014)
Reading, Theater for the New City (2013)
Reading, Dixon Place (2013)
Grant, Queens Council on the Arts (2012)
10-minute version, 10x10 on North Festival, Barrington Stage Company, dir. Julie Boyd (2012)
"When 28-year-old Marny finds a lump in her breast, she uses it as an excuse to pretend she isn’t flunking out of adulthood and moves home to Long Island to live with her mother. As she vies with her family for the audience’s attention, Marny must either succumb to the whims of a family in crisis or take back her play—and her life."
Mechanical
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Mike Pettry
Reading, The Producers Club (2018)
Reading, Broom Tree Garden & Gallery (2018)
Grant, Queens Council on the Arts (2016)
Concert, Dixon Place (2017)
"When Ellen learns that she is part human and part Artificially Intelligent American (AIA), she runs for junior class president against Johnny, a popular bully who is running on an anti-AIA platform. Believing in her capacity to change the status quo, she instead finds herself at the mercy of social media image, a student body bent on mass consumption, and a sea of rapidly spreading misinformation."
Loving Leo
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Zach Redler
Weston Playhouse, dir. Noah Himmelstein, MD Travis Horton (2013)
Weston Playhouse New Musical Award (2012)
Demo by Sh-K-Boom Records, MD Vadim Feichtner (2012)
Reading, The Contemporary Traditionalists (2011)
Reading, TriArts Sharon Playhouse (2011)
Reading, Adirondack Theatre Festival (2010)
Writers' Retreat, Weston Playhouse (2010)
"Loving Leo is the story of Lena and David, a childless middle-aged couple who take in Lena's stepfather Leo after the death of her mother. As the three adults struggle to live together in Lena and David’s one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx, Leo becomes their surrogate child, causing them to reexamine their relationship and the shifting nature of who is—and who isn’t—family."
מיתוסים / MITOS / KAMANALIS
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Jaime Lozano
Translated by Jaime Lozano
Colegio Civil Centro Cultural Universitario, Monterrey, Mexico, dir./MD Jaime Lozano (2012)
"Three short musicals - The Yehuatl (inspired by the story of the Golem), Ixachipul (the Behemoth), and Zyanya (Lilith) - that explore the theme of creation. All three pieces are inspired by ancient Jewish tales and are reimagined as magical realism pieces deep in untouched villages in rural Mexico."
EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION!: THE MUSICAL
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Chris Shimojima
Theater for the New City, dir. Sara Cooper, MD Chris Shimojima (2007)
New City, New Blood Reading Series, Theater for the New City (2007)
"When 17-year-old high school dropout Edie Park has unprotected sex with her ex-boyfriend Luke Lombardi in the apartment of her fiancé (and former high school guidance counselor), Edie and Luke set out on a 3-day quest to obtain the ever-elusive emergency contraception pill."
We Love You, Johnny Hero
Book & Lyrics by Sara Cooper
Music by Chris Shimojima
New York International Fringe Festival, dir. Sara Cooper, MD Chris Shimojima (2006)
"When Johnny Hero, the President of the United States, is replaced and no one seems to notice, journalist Jeannie becomes determined to uncover the truth in a spinning world of conspiracy, chaos, and chloroform."