PAUL'S CASEPAUL'S CASE
KATHRYN WALAT & GREGORY SPEARS, LIBRETTIST
Subsisting in grimy turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh, a misfit high school boy finds an escape. Swept up by dreams of a more glamorous world, his flight and ultimate dissolution are chronicled in the New York premiere of the chamber opera, Paul’s Case. With music that superimposes new and old styles—post-minimal and baroque—composer Gregory Spears and playwright Kathryn Walat’s poignant operatic adaptation of Willa Cather’s short story traces Paul’s voyage from his repressive surroundings to New York City’s lavish Waldorf Astoria Hotel. A timeless story with a gripping climax, Paul’s Case reveals one young man’s destructive blend of defiance and fragility. Based on the short story “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather.
SUPPORT: Paul’s Case premiered in UrbanArias production in Washington DC. Developed and produced by American Opera Projects in part with funds from TheAndrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts
In Paul’s Case[...] the composer Gregory Spears combines minimalism, baroque gestures, and extended vocal techniques into a distinctive and pungent musical language.
CREATIVE TEAM
COMPOSER — GREGORY SPEARS
LIBRETTIST — KATHRYN WALAT & GREGORY SPEARS
CONDUCTOR — ROBERT WOOD
DIRECTOR — KEVIN NEWBURY
SCENIC DESIGN — TIM MACKABEE
COSTUME DESIGN — AMANDA SEYMOUR
LIGHTING DESGIN — ERIC SOUTHERN
FEATURING — JONATHAN BLALOCK, AMANDA CRIDER, KEITH PHARES, ERIN SANZERO, JIM SHAFFRAN, MICHAEL SLATTERY, MELISSA WIMBISH, KEITH CHAMBERS, AMERICAN MODERN ENSEMBLE
BASED ON THE SHORT STORY — PAUL’S CASE BY WILLA CATHER
CREATIVE TEAM
KEVIN NEWBURY
DIRECTOR
Kevin Newbury (Director) is a theatre, opera, film, and event director based in New York City. He has directed more than 60 original productions and his work has been presented by many opera companies, festivals, and symphonies, including Park Avenue Armory, Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Barcelona Liceu, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Minnesota Opera, L’Opera de Montreal, PROTOTYPE Festival, Urban Arias (D.C.), Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Ireland’s Wexford Festival, among many others. Newbury is especially committed to developing and directing new work. He was directed more than two dozen world premiere operas and plays. Recent highlights include Fellow Travelers (Gregory Spears, composer; Greg Pierce, libretto) at Cincinnati Opera; Todd Almond’s Kansas City Choir Boy (Beth Morrison Projects, tour producer) at PROTOTYPE Festival, Boston’s American Repertory Theater, Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group, and Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts; O Columbia (Gregory Spears, composer; Royce Vavrek, librettist) at Houston Grand Opera; The Manchurian Candidate (Kevin Puts, composer; Mark Campbell, librettist) and Doubt (Douglas J. Cuomo, composer; John Patrick Shanley, librettist) at Minnesota Opera; and Bel Canto (Jimmy López, composer; Nilo Cruz, librettist) at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Upcoming projects include the world premieres of The Good Swimmer (Heidi Rodewald, composer; Donna Di Novelli, librettist) and The (R)Evolution of Steve Jobs (Mason Bates, composer; Mark Campbell, librettist) at Santa Fe Opera. Newbury was raised in Maine, graduated from Bowdoin College.
KATHRYN WALAT
LIBRETTIST
Kathryn Walat is an award-winning playwright, whose work has been produced across the country, as well as an opera librettist. Her play CREATION – about music, obsession, and the artistic process – was developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center/National Playwrights Conference, and premiered at the Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena, for which she was nominated for an LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Playwriting.
Her play VICTORIA MARTIN: MATH TEAM QUEEN premiered Off-Broadway at the Women’s Project, and was published in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007 (Smith & Kraus); and her politically resonant BLEEDING KANSAS premiered at the Hangar Theatre (Ithaca) and received a Francesca Primus Citation (American Theatre Critics Association). Other works include SEE BAT FLY (Kilroy’s List 2014; Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep, Providence), ANCIENT GODS OF THE BACKWOODS (New Georges’ Germ Project, NYC), KNOW DOG (Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin), and her one-act JOHNNY HONG KONG (Perishable Theatre, Providence).
This spring her co-adaptation (with Jeffrey Hatcher) of the Elizabethan thriller ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM is running Off-Broadway with Red Bull Theater, directed by Jesse Berger, and commissioned with an individual artist grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
She is also a librettist of contemporary chamber opera. PAUL'S CASE, adapted from the Willa Cather story with composer Gregory Spears, premiered at UrbanArias and was produced in New York at PROTOTYPE festival and at Pittsburgh Opera. It was named in The New Yorker’s list of Ten Notable Performances for 2014; and its recording from National Sawdust Tracks was named in Opera News’ “5 Best New Works” of 2019. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, an opera for young audiences (with Gregory Spears), was commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago for production in fall 2016 and scheduled for remount in 2020. THE ECHO DRIFT (co-librettist; composer Mikael Karlsson), was commissioned and produced by Beth Morrison Projects, HERE, and American Opera Projects, and premiered at the 2018 PROTOTYPE festival in New York.
She is currently working on BELL (with composer Richard Einhorn) -- an opera about Alexander Graham Bell -- as a commission for Sign & Sing, a company which explores stories and issues of accessibility through opera and American Sign Language (ASL). There will be a workshop presentation of BELL at Skidmore College this spring, featuring The Musicians of Maalwyck.
Kate has received commissions from MCC Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, New Georges, and Actors’ Theatre of Louisville (On the Road anthology project). Her work has had readings and workshops at such places as The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, Actor’s Express, The Orchard Project, Lark Play Development Center, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She is an Affiliated Playwright with New Georges (NYC), and an Affiliate Writer at the Playwrights' Center (Minneapolis). SEE BAT FLY was on The Kilroy’s List of most recommended plays by women for 2014, ROMEO & NAOMI RAMIREZ was on The Kilroy’s List for 2015, and SMALL TOWN VALUES received a Kilroy’s Honorable Mention in 2016.
Her work is published by Samuel French and by Playscripts, including three plays for young audiences: MISS ELECTRICITY (La Jolla Playhouse), ANDROCLES AND THE LION (Hangar Theatre), and DRAMA GEEKS VS. ZOMBIE CHEERLEADERS (Keen Company). She is also the author of two plays created especially for college actors: LOVERS & PLAYERS (Savannah College of Art & Design), and SIX SCENES IN A THEATER (SUNY Albany).
Plays in development include: ROMEO & NAOMI RAMIREZ (The Kilroy’s List; Ruth Easton series/Playwrights’ Center; SheWrites Festival), SMALL TOWN VALUES (The Kilroy’s honorable mention; The O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference; PlayLabs), and SOUTHERN HAUNT (Finalist for The O’Neill; developed at Actor’s Express and Playwrights’ Center). Her newest play, MARY SHELLEY MEETS FRANKENSTEIN, began in an Audrey Residency at New Georges, and was further developed with a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts/NYS Council for the Arts.
Kate received her BA in English and Creative Writing from Brown University, graduating magna cum laude, and her MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama. She is an Associate Professor/Resident Playwright and Theatre Program Director at SUNY Albany, and lives with her family in New York City.
GREGORY SPEARS
LIBRETTIST
Praised for “astonishingly beautiful” music (The New York Times) and a “singular compositional voice, unlike any that has been heard in opera before” (The New Yorker), composer Gregory Spears is acclaimed for blending romanticism, minimalism, and early music influences into works celebrated for their melodic richness and emotional clarity.
The 2025-2026 season brings the world premieres of Spears’ newest opera,Sleepers Awake (Opera Philadelphia), as well as Secrets (The Frick Collection) and Bartleby (Tucson Desert Song Festival). His best-known opera, Fellow Travelers (libretto by Greg Pierce), marks its tenth anniversary in 2026 with the launch of a national, multi-year tour.
Spears’ music has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Seraphic Fire, The Crossing, Bang on a Can, and JACK Quartet, among many others. Spears’ opera The Righteous (libretto by Tracy K. Smith) premiered at Santa Fe Opera in 2024, earning a “Critic’s Pick” in The New York Times. Earlier collaborations with Smith include Castor and Patience (2022, Cincinnati Opera) and Love Story, commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic. His first opera, Paul’s Case (written with librettist Kathryn Walat),was called “a masterpiece” by The New York Observer. Beyond opera, Spears has developed a wide-ranging catalog of orchestral, choral, and chamber works. His Requiem (2010) and Seven Days (2021) showcase his gift for balancing intimacy with dramatic scale.
A graduate of Eastman, Yale, and Princeton, and a former Fulbright Scholar, Spears teaches at New York University, and his music is published by Schott Music and Schott PSNY.
KEVIN NEWBURY
DIRECTOR
Kevin Newbury (Director) is a theatre, opera, film, and event director based in New York City. He has directed more than 60 original productions and his work has been presented by many opera companies, festivals, and symphonies, including Park Avenue Armory, Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Barcelona Liceu, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Minnesota Opera, L’Opera de Montreal, PROTOTYPE Festival, Urban Arias (D.C.), Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Ireland’s Wexford Festival, among many others. Newbury is especially committed to developing and directing new work. He was directed more than two dozen world premiere operas and plays. Recent highlights include Fellow Travelers (Gregory Spears, composer; Greg Pierce, libretto) at Cincinnati Opera; Todd Almond’s Kansas City Choir Boy (Beth Morrison Projects, tour producer) at PROTOTYPE Festival, Boston’s American Repertory Theater, Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group, and Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts; O Columbia (Gregory Spears, composer; Royce Vavrek, librettist) at Houston Grand Opera; The Manchurian Candidate (Kevin Puts, composer; Mark Campbell, librettist) and Doubt (Douglas J. Cuomo, composer; John Patrick Shanley, librettist) at Minnesota Opera; and Bel Canto (Jimmy López, composer; Nilo Cruz, librettist) at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Upcoming projects include the world premieres of The Good Swimmer (Heidi Rodewald, composer; Donna Di Novelli, librettist) and The (R)Evolution of Steve Jobs (Mason Bates, composer; Mark Campbell, librettist) at Santa Fe Opera. Newbury was raised in Maine, graduated from Bowdoin College.
TIM MACKABEE
SCENIC DESIGNER
Tim Mackabee is a set designer whose credits span Broadway, the West End, and some of New York’s most respected Off-Broadway institutions. On Broadway, he has designed The Elephant Man — which also transferred to the West End — and Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth. His Off-Broadway work includes productions at Manhattan Theatre Club, Roundabout Theatre Company, Atlantic Theater Company, Lincoln Center Theater, and the Vineyard Theatre, among them Vietgone, The Last Match, Guards at the Taj, Darling Grenadine, and Luce. His design work also encompasses television — including Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo (HBO), Smash, Gotham, and The Today Show — and Carly Rae Jepsen’s music video “Surrender My Heart.” He holds degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Yale School of Drama.
AMANDA SEYMOUR
COSTUME DESIGN
Amanda Seymour is a New York based costume designer for theatre, opera, tv, film and dance. She has been lucky enough to continue in this career providing clothes appropriate for the character to tell their story, and comfortable for the artist to have confidence in their performance.
