The Post Office
Music by Laura Kaminsky
Libretto by Elaine Sexton
Design by Charles Renfro
Directed by Kevin Newbury
RUN TIME:
1hr 10min
Leadership support for BAM's strategic initiatives provided by:
Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by:
Leadership support for programming provided by:
Additional support for opera at BAM provided by The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust
BAM would like to acknowledge that the land we are on today and on which all of our physical buildings are located is the stolen land of the Lenape people. We acknowledge the Indigenous stewardship of this land and honor the Lenape elders past and present, as well as future generations.
Music by Laura Kaminsky
Libretto by Elaine Sexton
Design by Charles Renfro, Diller Scofido + Renfro
Directed by Kevin Newbury
Conducted by David Bloom
Performers
Anna / Sarah Moulton Faux (Soprano)
Emily / Blythe Gaissert (Mezzo-Soprano)
Frank / Brian Jeffers (Tenor)
Ben / Markel Reed (Baritone)
Benjamin Franklin / David Adam Moore (Baritone, May 16, 17 & 21)
Benjamin Franklin / Michael Kelly (Baritone, May 19 & 20)
Piano / Daniel Gortler
Scenic & Projection Designer / Charles Renfro
Associate Designer / Alex Knezo
Associate Projection Designer / Zack Lobel
Lighting Designer / Phillip Franck
Costume Designer / Amanda Roberge
Production Manager / Yichun Li
Stage Manager / Valos Lowe
Assistant Stage Manager / Juliet Grace Grochowski
Supertitle Operator / Ziyan Yang
Production Assistant / Charlotte Christ
Assistant to the Conductor / Laura Jobin-Acosta
Set Fabricator / Marty Chafkin / Perfection Electricks
Commissioned by Cincinnati’s ArtsWave Pride, Queen City Opera & Kenneth Shaw
Co-Produced by Spruce Peak Arts
By arrangement with Bill Holab Music
THE POST OFFICE is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the city council.
AOP’s programs are made possible in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation, The National Endowment for the
Arts, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Amphion Foundation, BMI,
and the contributions of many individuals.
About the Show
Program Note
The Post Office is a story of our times, of an America in distress, of individuals caught up in conflicts that surprise them. We witness the strength and fragility of friendships, of community, and quite literally of democracy itself—unravelling. A bitter conflict between co-workers in a small-town post office provided the seed of an idea that inspired this story of what divides us as a people, and the possibility of what can bring us together. The opera came together, in life, between friends, when poet Elaine Sexton shared this first-hand story of a conflict over gay marriage with composer Laura Kaminsky, who shared it with baritone Kenneth Shaw, who wanted Kaminsky to write a song for him on this very subject. What began as an idea for a single song, then a song cycle, started in poems, then transformed into arias, and is now a provocative chamber opera in poems that evokes the drama of what it means to live in troubled times of deep divisions and equally compassionate intervention.
Unlike the conflict that ignites the drama in this story, a fracture between friends, the making of opera is quite the opposite: a creative collaboration between longtime friends, starting with the composer, Laura Kaminsky, and poet/librettist, Elaine Sexton, and built on the strength and trust between them, then expanding to form this extraordinary company of committed artists who now bring you into the world of The Post Office.
Charles Jarden
General Director
American Opera Projects
first, the story:
The biggest surprise in the formation of the libretto came after the story and characters found their footing on the page. At this point the post office itself needed to have a voice: with its promise to serve the public, to deliver, to protect our privacy, and, ultimately a chance to express itself regarding the conflicts taking place inside and out—the ongoing and very real threat to its very survival.
Finding an opera in a post office is very much in keeping with my daily practice, as a poet, finding something extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary. The challenge was to find the figurative language that would encompass what the postal service represents: privacy, delivery, respect; and how words matter, what the common good in the Declaration of Independence offers, what we take to be “self-evident,” that ideas like truth, justice, and decency need to be upheld. And this began with finding common ground between the co-workers who were deeply divided. Giving voice to the post office itself: “you enter me the way you enter a promise” was a way of asking the characters to keep their end of the bargain, to uphold that trust. When fine-tuning the text, Laura and I both found it critical that the characters be emphatically themselves, but also vulnerable and believable. What we take for granted, as Americans, is eroded/eroding. Giving voice to Benjamin Franklin, this country’s first postmaster general, was a way to look at the erosion of democracy and decency through the lens of history, from a genius, albeit a very human and flawed individual, who never legally married his common-law wife. Our ghostly Franklin offers the voice of reason and prompts us all to take a good look at his legacy.
Elaine Sexton, Librettist
“Opera is and does many wonderful things… One thing that opera most definitely does is to engage in political thought… Political thought sometimes focuses on institutions and policies, but political thought in opera more often goes beneath these structures to ask what human beings have to be like to sustain political institutions of different types. What must their emotions be like? What rights and freedoms must they have?” These opening sentences, from Martha Nussbaum's latest book, The Republic of Love: Opera and Political Freedom, encapsulate my own values as a composer in words much better than any I could have written. In our work together, Elaine and I wanted to make the political personal… both intimate and grand. The intimacy of The Post Office—five singers and a solo pianist who are enmeshed in a conflict—was our way to address the big picture, the current state of our democracy. With all five singing together a sixth role, “The Post Office,” I was afforded the fantastic musical challenge of making a physical space, the one-room post office, into a character itself, and the stunning and original set design by my dear friend Charles Renfro provides that space for their collective voice.
On a musical note, there is symbolism and leitmotiv holding the work together. As Americans, we know that 13 is an important number—our country was founded by the 13 colonies in revolt. And this opera relies on the unusual meters of 13/4 and 13/8, with 13 beats providing a steady but irregular pulse—symbolizing, perhaps, the continuous yet uneven movement forward of our aspirational democracy. As our democracy continues to be tested, that irregular pulse keeps beating among our dedicated cast and production team who have helped take that original request for a song to BAM as a chamber opera in poems. To each of them, whom I love and respect and place much trust, I am grateful. We will keep marching forward as one, singing for a better democracy. We are thrilled that you are joining us here at BAM for The Post Office.
Laura Kaminsky, Composer
Synopsis
The Post Office takes place in a one-room present-day post office that could be anywhere in America. The opera opens when The Post Office, itself a character sung by the entire cast, greets us with Walt Whitman’s “I contain multitudes.” The Post Office opens for the day as the chorus transforms into individuals: first, Frank, a postal worker, eager to make public his engagement, followed by Ben, the postmaster, his boss, who adamantly objects to same-sex marriage. Their friendship devolves from this into the larger issue of their differences and being deeply misunderstood. Joined by a part-time worker, Anna, followed by Emily, a customer, they all take sides, feeling equally unseen. The toxicity of their differences draws the ghost of Benjamin Franklin, the first Postmaster General, into the debate, who looks down with despair at these modern-day citizens unable to agree on the “common good.” When Emily recounts his accomplishments and his shortcomings, he acknowledges: “I'm flawed.” And in doing so, he challenges all to listen to themselves. Ben and Frank attempt to find commonality, but reconciliation is still a long way off. Is the Post Office now dead, but still beautiful? Is democracy?
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
composer
Laura Kaminsky, possessing “an ear for the new and interesting” (The New York Times), frequently addresses social and political issues in her work. Her first opera, As One (co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed), is the most produced contemporary opera since its 2014 premiere, with 65+ productions internationally. Other operas: Some Light Emerges and Today It Rains (Campbell & Reed); Hometown to the World (Kimberly Reed); Finding Wright (Andrea Fellows Fineberg); February (co-librettist with novelist Lisa Moore); Lucidity (David Cote); Time to Act (Crystal Manich); The Post Office (Elaine Sexton); and, forthcoming, The Song of the Lark (Fineberg). Classical Voice America posits that “Kaminsky writes effectively for the voice, whether in searing, soul-baring arias and duets or recitative-like passages that propel the narrative,” while American Record Guide notes that her music is “full of fire as well as ice, contrasting dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection.” Kaminsky has written a Piano Concerto and a Piano Quintet for internationally renowned pianist Ursula Oppens, and two string quartets for the acclaimed Fry Street Quartet, with whom she recently collaborated on a score for the documentary series Poetry in America. Awarded the Polish Gold Cross of Merit (Złoty Krzyż Zasługi RP) by the President of Poland for exemplary public service/humanitarian work, Kaminsky has been recognized by the NEA, Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress, Opera America, Chamber Music America, and USArtists International, among others. On the faculties at SUNY Purchase and Boston Conservatory/Berklee, Kaminsky is the co-director, with librettist Deborah Brevoort, of Seattle Opera’s Creation Lab. Recordings of her music can be found on the Affeto, Albany, Bridge, BSS, Cedille, CRI, Capstone, Mode, MSR, and Navona labels.
librettist
Elaine Sexton is a poet, librettist, critic, and educator. Her libretto for this opera is also published in book form as The Post Office: An Opera in Poems. She is a 2026 NYSCA (New York State Council on the Arts) grantee for this body of work. Her previous five books include Site Specific: New & Selected Poems (2025), Drive (2022), Prospect/Refuge(2015), Causeway (2008), and Sleuth (2003). Her poems, art reviews, book reviews, and works in visual art have appeared in journals and anthologies, textbooks, and websites, including American Poetry Review, Art in America, Poetry, Ploughshares, and O, The Oprah Magazine.
In addition to The Post Office, she wrote the text for After Stonewall, co-commissioned by the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) and Five Boroughs Music Festival to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
Sexton teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and has served as guest faculty at New York University and City College (CUNY). She regularly teaches poetry at art and writing programs and centers in the US and abroad.
designer
Charles Renfro is an architect working at the intersection of building design, the performing arts, and academia. He joined Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in 1997 and became a Partner in 2004, and has led many of DS+R’s performing arts, academic, and adaptive reuse projects.
The Post Office is Charles’s first opera and continues his longstanding interest in performance and stage design. Previous work for the stage includes collaborations with Australian Dance Theatre on Be Yourself and with Jonah Bokaer Dance on Indecent Spaces and Late Nights on Air, both pieces exploring how quotidian objects and everyday spatial conditions have deeper, more complex, and often violent histories.
Charles continues to design performance spaces and is currently leading the design for DS+R of Casa Belongó in East Harlem, the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra’s new permanent home, as well as the adaptive reuse of St. Clement’s Church for The New Group theater company in Hell’s Kitchen. Both projects engage the general public in unexpected ways through radical transformations of their primary performance spaces.
Charles's previously completed performance space projects for DS+R include the renovation of The Juilliard School at Lincoln Center and Juilliard’s new ground-up campus in Tianjin, China, which houses the firm’s first new concert hall, and the Prior Performing Arts Center at College of the Holy Cross, which includes the firm’s first opera house.
Recognized twice on the Out100 list as a leading LGBTQ+ voice in architecture and the arts and in Crain’s New York as one of New York City’s outstanding gay business leaders, his independent work around areas of sexuality, space, and intentional family are currently being explored in his ongoing academic work Queer Utopia and his participation in the design of QNCC, the Queer Nightlife Community Center under construction in Brooklyn. He serves as an adjunct board member of BOFFO, a nonprofit arts residency supporting LGBTQ+ BIPOC artists in Fire Island Pines.
He is a recurring professor at Rice University, on faculty at the School of Visual Arts, and has taught at Columbia, Parsons School of Design, and Friends Seminary, among others. He was a founding editor-at-large of Document Journal and has contributed writing to many magazines, monographs, and history books, including The Art School.
stage director
Kevin Newbury is an opera, theatre, film, and television director and producer based in New York City. Kevin has directed over 100 original projects in multiple mediums. Career highlights include three productions for PBS Great Performances: the world premiere of Bel Canto (Lyric Opera of Chicago), the world premiere of Doubt (Minnesota Opera), and Bernstein’s MASS (Ravinia Festival). Kevin has directed dozens of world premieres, including Kansas City Choir Boy (starring Courtney Love, Prototype Festival/National Tour); GRAMMY-winner The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs(Santa Fe, Seattle, San Francisco Operas); GLAAD Media Award winner Candy & Dorothy; and five operas with acclaimed composer Gregory Spears. Kevin’s long collaboration with Spears includes five world premieres, among them Fellow Travelers (NY Times “Best of 2016”) and Castor & Patience (NY Times “Best of 2022”), both with Cincinnati Opera, and The Righteous (Santa Fe Opera). Creative Director: Liz Phair's 30th Anniversary Exile in Guyville national tour. TV credits include SOUL(SIGNS): Making Music Visible for PBS/WNET/All Arts and Dickinson for Apple TV. In February 2026, Kevin launched the 10th Anniversary National Tour of Fellow Travelers at Seattle Opera and Portland Opera, with upcoming engagements at San Diego Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, and Austin Opera, and more cities to be announced soon. Co-Founder: Up Until Now Collective.
conductor
David Bloom (he/him) is a conductor equally at home in orchestral repertoire, opera, and new music, noted for his “dazzling precision and grace” (San Francisco Chronicle), “intelligence, elegance, and passion” (Opera News), “ferocious and focused” (The New York Times) performances, and “breathtaking and inspired programming” (Shepherd Express). He dedicates his work to collaborating with artists and communities to inspire creativity, empathy, and joy.
Bloom has guest-conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Washington National Opera, American Composers Orchestra, Opera Omaha, Central City Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Crossing, Ensemble Connect, and Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and worked with soloists Dashon Burton, David Byrne, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Helga Davis, Nathalie Joachim, Kronos Quartet, Isabel Leonard, Courtney Love, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Hila Plitmann, Dawn Upshaw, Andrew Yee, and many more. He has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, Park Avenue Armory, and Big Ears Festival. He conducted the opening of Lincoln Center’s 2024 Summer for the City festival with a program of operatic standards and original songs with drag artists Sapphira Cristál, Monét X Change, and Thorgy Thor.
pianist
Daniel Gortler is an acclaimed Israeli American pianist and has delighted audiences and critics alike with his performances around the world, receiving praise for his technical mastery and musical ingenuity. Gortler has performed with major orchestras such as the Berlin and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestras, London Philharmonic, and San Francisco, New World, and Atlanta Symphony, as well as all Israeli orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic. Highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall in London and Mogador Theatre in Paris, and tours in South Africa, Brazil, and South Korea. In the US he’s held recitals at the Museum of Art in Cleveland, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and 92NY. Gortler has collaborated with esteemed conductors including Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Yoel Levi, Franz Welser-Möst, Justus Frantz, Noam Sheriff, Dan Ettinger, and Nir Kabaretti. He has appeared in many festivals and in a video of Mark Neikrug’s Through Roses, collaborating with Pinchas Zukerman. An avid chamber music performer, Gortler has worked with artists such as Bo Skovhus, Nikolaj Znaider, David Garrett, Giora Schmidt, and Steven Isserlis. Gortler is a guest soloist with the Jupiter, Catalyst, and Shanghai Quartets. Following his celebrated Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Schubert albums, Gortler's new album of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, released in 2024 on Prospero Classical, was highly praised and won the prestigious Choc de Classica award. Continuing to explore unusual and under-represented repertoire, Gortler will record a unique selection of nocturnes for Prospero Classical in 2026. Daniel has been a Steinway Artist since 1997.
Lighting Designer
Phillip Franck is an accomplished lighting designer with over 175 professional and academic productions to his credit. For 26 years, Phillip was based in Nashville, Tennessee, where he worked extensively with Nashville Repertory Theatre. NRT credits include Our Town, Indecent, The Cake, Clybourne Park, Shakespeare in Love, Sense and Sensibility, and A Raisin in the Sun. Phillip has also designed for American Stage in St. Petersburg, Florida, where his credits include Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Bad Jews, The Pitmen Painters, and Red. Other recent credits include As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Cymbeline, Gem of the Ocean, and Julius Caesar for Nashville Shakespeare Festival.
Phillip was a member of the Theatre faculty at Vanderbilt University from 1999–2025, serving as the resident set, lighting, and sound designer. Phillip holds an MFA from Northwestern University and a BA from The University of Puget Sound.
An avid nature and landscape photographer, Phillip uses photography to inform his work as a theatrical designer as he explores light, color, and texture. Phillip is a member of the professional design union, United Scenic Artists, Local 829. Phillip recently relocated to Vermont, where he is the Director of Production and Technical Education at Spruce Peak Arts in Stowe.
Associate Designer
Alex Knezo is a Designer and Associate at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). He joined DS+R in 2016, where he is a central member of DS+R's independent projects team, contributing to numerous performing and visual arts projects such as The Mile-Long Opera, a performance work featuring 1,000 singers distributed along the High Line; Deep Blue Sea, a dance work choreographed by Bill T. Jones that premiered at the Park Avenue Armory; Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, heralded as one of the most visited exhibitions in the history of The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Cartier, Islamic Inspiration and Modern Design, which premiered at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris before traveling to the Dallas Art Museum and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
In parallel, he has also been instrumental to many of the studio's significant public projects, including the High Line in New York City and Nuevo Azca, a new park in the center of Madrid.
Prior to DS+R, Alex worked at Shigeru Ban Architects and Steven Holl Architects, and with Christo and Jeanne-Claude to install The Gates in Central Park. His own design work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo Designers Week, and the University of Texas, Austin. Alex holds a BSE in Civil Engineering with Architectural Focus from Princeton University.
Costume Designer
Amanda Roberge is a New York-based costume designer for theater, opera, and film. She finds great joy in infusing her work with inspiration from nature and is deeply passionate about sustainable design. Amanda thrives on the collaborative process, creating a shared visual language alongside fellow artists and working closely with actors to craft characters and transform the human body through costume.
She holds an MFA in Design for Stage and Film from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a BFA from NYU Tisch, where she studied at the Experimental Theatre Wing. Her work has been seen at the Public Theater, HERE Arts, The Brick, Dixon Place, The Tank, and numerous other Off- and Off-Off-Broadway venues. Regionally, she has designed for the Alley Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Berkshire Theatre Group, and more. The Post Officemarks Amanda's second costume design for AOP, after 2024's The Climate Opera Project.
Associate Projection Designer
Zack Lobel is a lighting and video designer working across theater, museums, and live performance. His work has been seen at the Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Alice Tully Hall, The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and Webster Hall. He is the lighting director for Omari Wiles’ Bessie Award–winning dance company and has served as an associate on productions at Roundabout Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Theater for a New Audience, and PlayMakers Repertory Company. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and a proud member of USA 829, IATSE.
Anna
Sarah Moulton Faux finds forgotten music and brings it back to life. Lauded for her “full, silvery soprano” (Opera News), “luminous voice” (Textura), and “mesmerizing” performances (Brooklyn Spectator), she has appeared at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall, and is a frequent guest with orchestras and opera companies.
Moulton Faux's work extends beyond the stage into the archive. Her album Yuliya (Azica Records) presents the first modern recordings of Julia Weissberg Rimsky-Korsakov's songs—compositions silent for over a century after the Jewish composer's death during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. She uncovered the forgotten scores at the Russian State Library in Moscow, then recorded them with pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski and seven-time Grammy winner Judith Sherman. Textura noted that the duo “prove to be equally effective whether they're delivering lyrical reveries, entrancing fairy tales, or aching laments.”
This pattern—discovery, scholarship, performance—defines Moulton Faux's artistic identity. Her debut album, Where Should This Music Be? Songs of Lola Williams (New World Records), also produced by Sherman, earned her the American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award. Fanfare Magazine declared: “Sarah Moulton Faux is stunning: her devotion to this music shines through every syllable… a glorious disc.” She co-edited Williams's handwritten manuscripts and created modern editions through Classical Vocal Reprints, opening the repertoire to other performers.
Beyond performance, Moulton Faux shapes the future of American opera. As Co-President of the Board of Directors of American Opera Projects—the nation's leading opera development company—she earned an Opera America National Trustee Recognition Award. A graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (magna cum laude with departmental honors), she holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance & Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College, graduating with honors.
Emily
Blythe Gaissert, mezzo-soprano, has established herself as one of the preeminent interpreters of some of the brightest stars of new classical music. A true singing actress, she has received critical acclaim for her interpretations of both new and traditional repertoire in opera, concert, and chamber works. Gaissert’s solo debut album, HOME, which consisted of seven world-premiere works, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Classical charts and received great acclaim from Opera News, The New Yorker, and the Financial Times, among others.
In the 2025–26 season, Gaissert has created the role of the Margravine in the world premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s opera Hildegard with Los Angeles Opera and the Prototype Festival, as well as recording her second solo album and performing and recording Laura Kaminsky’s new opera, Time to Act, with the Boston Conservatory and National Sawdust.
Previous engagements include world premieres by John Adams, Laura Kaminsky, Mikael Karlsson, Ricky Ian Gordon, David Little, Kamala Sankaram, Marc Neikrug, René Orth, and many more. Other engagements include the title role in Carmen; Sally in The Hours; Margret in Wozzeck; Mere Jeanne, Mother Marie, and Old Prioress in Dialogues of the Carmelites; Hansel in Hansel and Gretel; Siegrune in Die Walküre; Lucretia in The Rape of Lucretia; Maddalena in Rigoletto; and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly; and as a soloist in the Verdi Requiem, Berio Folk Songs, and Mozart Requiem. Companies include the Metropolitan Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Dallas Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, San Diego Opera, Prototype Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Lyrique en Mer, Tulsa Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Sarasota Opera, and Opera Saratoga.
Frank
Brian Jeffers is a New York City-based performer praised for his “flexible and heroic tenor” (Opera News) and “mix of comic boldness and fine voice” (Arts Knoxville). He recently made his Off-Broadway debut at Lincoln Center Theater (in association with the Met Opera) in Amahl and the Night Visitors (Ensemble/King Kaspar u/s). Recent engagements include The Rake’s Progress (Sellem) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (Mole) with Opera Omaha; Cendrillon (Count Barigoule) with Knoxville Opera; and Sweeney Todd (Beadle Bamford) with Chautauqua Opera. In 2023, he made his solo recital debut with Songs of a Lark (Vesper Concerts Omaha). This fall, he will perform the world premiere of Joshua Daniel Nichols and James Harrigan’s Jefferson Lives! with Teatro Grattacielo at The Flea Theater.
Active in choral and popular repertoire, he is a member of the New York Philharmonic Chorus (Done Made My Vow, Mozart’s Mass in C, Maestro, Mahler Symphony No. 2), and has performed as a backing vocalist for Kristin Chenoweth with the Phoenix Symphony. He has performed solos for Messiah, To Be Certain of a Dawn, Das Lied von der Erde, Considering Matthew Shepard, Mozart’s Requiem and Vesperae solennes de confessore, Haydn’s The Creation, and Honegger’s King David.
He appears in the 2025 Oliver Hermanus film The History of Sound, and in 2023, as part of the Gloria choir, performed the US debut of the title track “Gloria” with Sam Smith and Sharon Stone on Saturday Night Live. He holds his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Master of Music in Music Theatre-Opera from Arizona State University. He is a young artist alum of Chautauqua Opera, Opera Saratoga, Aspen Opera Theatre, and the Broadway Dreams Foundation. He is represented by Insignia Artists Management and makes his BAM debut with The Post Office.
Benjamin Franklin
Michael Kelly (baritone), a performer, educator, writer, and passionate LGBTQ+ activist with two decades of distinguished experience, has carved out a remarkable and multifaceted artistic career. His performances have captivated audiences worldwide, earning him accolades as a “mesmerizing” and “vocally splendid” artist.
Michael has graced the stages of renowned international opera and orchestral companies, showcasing a diverse repertoire that spans numerous styles and historical periods. Notable venues that have hosted his artistry include Carnegie Hall, Geffen Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, and prestigious festivals such as Santa Fe Opera and Théâtre du Châtelet, as well as partnerships with symphony orchestras across the United States. His contributions to the music world are further highlighted by his appearances on nine commercially released recordings.
Benjamin Franklin
David Adam Moore, named one of the world’s “100 Most Creative Visionaries in Experiential Art” by the XLIST, is a Grammy-nominated baritone, director, and immersive media artist with a prolific international career. He performs leading roles with major institutions including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Carnegie Hall, and the Salzburg Festival. His repertoire spans over 65 principal roles, with acclaimed performances in Don Giovanni, Dead Man Walking, Eugene Onegin, and Billy Budd; as Stanley Kowalski and Prior Walter; and in works such as Winterreise and Carmina Burana.
An advocate of contemporary music, Moore has created roles for composers including Thomas Adès, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Peter Eötvös, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and David T. Little. Recent highlights include his return to the Metropolitan Opera as Horatio in Brett Dean’s Hamlet; the world premiere of Snider’s Hildegard at LA Opera and Prototype Festival; his Covent Garden debut as Col. Gomez in Adès’s The Exterminating Angel—a role he originated at the Salzburg Festival and reprised at the Metropolitan Opera; the international premiere of his multimedia Winterreise at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, with pianist Daniel Gortler; and the title role in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking for Hungarian State Opera, featuring scenic design based on Moore's photography.
Moore’s work in immersive performance, installation art, stage direction, and design has been featured in Lighting and Sound America and presented by organizations including the Guggenheim, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Diego Opera, .NO Gallery NYC, and National Sawdust. In partnership with director/designer Vita Tzykun, he co-leads the NYC-based transdisciplinary collective GLMMR. Together, they will direct and design a new production of Rossini’s William Tell to open Boston Lyric Opera’s 50th-anniversary season. Moore teaches courses in Transdisciplinary Storytelling and Voice at the National Theater Institute and has served twice as Granada Artist-in-Residence and Visiting Professor at the University of California, Davis.
Ben
Markel Reed (baritone) “brings great articulate power and style” (Broadway World) to concert, recital, and opera performances throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. A passionate conveyor of the operatic repertoire, Reed has been cited for “delighting the crowd with his musical and dramatic expression” (Upstage Post) in both standard and contemporary repertoire. At the Metropolitan Opera, Reed performed with the ensemble in productions of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and sang in their 2019 Grammy Award-winning production of Porgy and Bess. That same year, he created the role of Chester in Fire Shut Up in My Bones in its premiere at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
The 2025–26 season features Mr. Reed in the roles of Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus with Washington Opera Society, Marcello in La Bohème with Portland Opera, his return to the role of James Baldwin in Sneed’s The Tongue & The Lashwith Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, a premiere with American Opera Projects as Ben in Kaminsky’s The Post Office, and Thomas Eugene McKeller in Damien Geter’s American Apollo with West Edge Opera.
Last season, Reed performed the roles of Masetto in Opera Omaha’s Don Giovanni; a guest performance of Henry “Box” Brown in Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road with UK Opera Theatre; Jigger Craigin in Boston Lyric Opera’s Carousel; and Yusef Salaam in Anthony Davis’s The Central Park Five with Detroit Opera. The previous season, he made his European debut as Joey in The Time of Our Singing with Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland.
Opera Today deemed Reed “a physical dynamo and a vocal delight” for his portrayal of Parson Alltalk in Joplin’s Treemonisha at OTSL, and The Boston Globe said he “sang with magnetic swagger as the fighter in his prime” as Young Emile in Champion with Boston Lyric Opera.
Production Manager
Yichun Li is a freelance production manager, stage manager, and electrician who recently moved to NYC from LA! Past productions include Falstaff (Juilliard), Julius Caesar (Juilliard), A Minor Inconvenience (Hollywood Fringe Fest), Xanadu (UCLA), and Beauty and the Beast (HOOLIGAN).
Stage Manager
Valos Lowe (he/him) is excited to be working with American Opera Projects again! He is originally from Texas and brings it up in conversation far too often. Previously with AOP, Valos served as the production stage manager for State of the Jews. Other recent works include: Future Stages Festival, La Clemenza di Tito, Water by the Spoonful (The Juilliard School); The Knock, Once Upon a Mattress (Central City); Fearless (Opera Delaware); Rusalka (Gulfshore Opera); This Little Light of Mine (Kentucky Opera); Vinkensport, The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace (Mannes Opera); A Raisin in the Sun (TheatreSquared). Valos was a poker dealer at the 2008 World Series of Poker.
Assistant Stage Manager
Juliet Grace Grochowski (they/she/he) is a New York City-based stage manager. She holds her BFA in Stage Management from Virginia Commonwealth University. Juliet recently made their Off-Broadway debut as the Assistant Stage Manager for Chasing Grace, a new musical with sheNYC Arts. Other NY credits include: The Guilty Banquet (FeverUp), Welcome Aboard: A Trip to Maestroville (Little Maestros), Die Sieben Todsünden (Manhattan School of Music). Next month, Juliet will be working on the stage management team for Broadway Bares, an annual fundraising performance for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. In the Fall, they'll be pursuing a Master of Arts in Theatre for Social and Civic Engagement at NYU Steinhardt. IG: @julietgrace_sm.
American Opera Projects
Founded in 1988, American Opera Projects (AOP) has been at the forefront of contemporary opera for over 30 years. The Brooklyn-based producing organization commissions, develops, and produces lyric theater projects, trains emerging composers and librettists, and creates personal connections within its community. Its works have received critical acclaim at opera companies and venues around the world, establishing a new musical canon that recognizes the operatic story in every life. AOP further expands the operatic field through its training programs The NYU Opera Lab, in partnership with NYU and for students and alumni in the NYU/Tisch Opera Lab; and Composers & the Voice, AOP’s in-house, two-year fellowship program for emerging composers and librettists.
Spruce Peak Arts
Spruce Peak Arts (SPA) is a professional performing arts center at the base of Stowe Mountain Resort, curating engaging experiences for all ages that connect audiences to the performing arts. This 420-seat multi-use modern performance center boasts pristine acoustics and state-of-the-art technical systems, recently updated to provide high-quality live streaming and recording features essential for thriving in the post-COVID world. Once untethered from the limitations of physical space, Spruce Peak Arts is able to achieve our mission to inspire, educate, and entertain all of us, all year round and now all around the world.
Spruce Peak Arts broadens horizons for arts spectators while providing artists with opportunities to interact with our communities through school visits, classes, workshops, residencies, and performance immersion experiences for all ages. Artists such as BlkBok, David Gonzalez, Natalie Merchant, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Doug Varone, Freedom House, Arlo Guthrie, Warren Miller, and Orebolo have educated and inspired our community. The Spruce Peak Arts Community & Education Fund ensures access to our programming through deeply discounted tickets for Vermont students, families, and community organizations. These year-round events include student matinee performances, school visits, classes, workshops, and residencies for all ages.
Through innovative programming and a steadfast commitment to community engagement, Spruce Peak Arts continues to inspire and connect audiences with the transformative power of the arts.
Spruce Peak Arts is led by Executive Director Seth Soloway and is governed by a 13-member board of directors led by Chair Dianne Brown.
AOP BOARD
Anthony Roth Costanzo
Sarah Moulton Faux
David Gordon
J. David Jackson
Charles Jarden
W. Wilson Jones
Cassondra E. Joseph
Mark Kalow
Norman Ryan
AOP STAFF
Charles Jarden / General Director
Joel Kalow / General Manager
Evan Bjornen / Chief Development Officer
Caitlin Mead / Grant Writer
Charlotte Christ / Production Intern
Ziyan Yang / Program Associate
American Opera Projects thanks the following generous donors to The Post Office:
Lead Production Sponsor
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Judith O. and Robert E. Rubin
Anonymous, in support of the creative team
Production Sponsors
The Cheswatyr Foundation
Jane A. Gross
Mark Kalow and Marlene Pitkow
Lynn J. Loacker
Christina Bott Murphy
Marcia Riklis and Michael Kessler
Sarita Singh and Raj Maheshwari
Herbert and Laura Roskind
Dr. Eugene E. Stark, Jr. and Jean Stark
Caroline and Robert Taubman, on behalf of the A. Alfred Taubman Foundation
Opening Night Sponsors
Janet Carr
Sarah and Gordon Faux
Gene Kaufman and Terry Eder Kaufman
Production Support
Annette Blaugrund, Jon Carter and Pamela Rubin Carter, Cincinnati’s ArtsWave Pride, Bonnie and Julian Emanuel, Fred Goldstein and David Pitt, Dr. Susan R. Harris, Peter Hochschild, The Horowitz Family, Charles Jarden and Norman Ryan, Cassondra Joseph, Benjamin and Edith Korman, Elizabeth Langland and Jerald Jahn, Beatrice M. Laurel, Kenneth Mills, Jane and Bill Pearson, Alexander Sanger, David A. Straite, and Sandy, Florence and Abe
Circle of Friends & Photo Submission Supporters
Maureen Baldwin and Ellie Sexton, Sharon Barr, Matheson Bell, Evan Bjornen and Luis P. Gutierrez, Marion and Alan Brown, Mark Campbell, Andrea Carter Brown and Thomas Drescher, James Browne, Debra Crespin, Pedro and Cory de Armas-Kendall, Marjorie Deninger, Pamela Drexel, Lauren Flanigan, Stephanie Fleischmann, David Gordon, David Groff and Clay Williams, Dana Hemmert, Linda Hillman Chayes and Michael Chayes, W. Wilson Jones, Joel Kalow, Nancy Kalow, Karen Kaminsky and Peter J. Tichansky, Nina Kaminsky, Patricia Kelly, Andrew Kimball, Michael Lawn and Rafe Totengco, Robert E. Lee III, Alisa Levin and Charles Nathan, Shell Li, Crystal Manich, Richard Mannoia, Mark Mariscal, John Mason, Jeffrey Matthews and René Cifuentes, JoAnne McFarland, Sage Mehta, Jennifer Miller, Matthew More, Anne Neubauer, Ingrid Nyeboe, Susan Osberg, Carmen Ramis, Carol Rosenfeld, Lucy Shelton, Sylvia Smith, Vanessa H. Smith, Diana Solomon-Glover, Ita Sonabend, Jeffrey Trachtman, Merry Vigneau, James Wacht, In memory of Cece Wasserman, and Anonymous, in honor of equity & compassion.
(Donor information current as of May 13, 2026)
The composer and librettist would like to acknowledge and express thanks to Kenneth Shaw for being the initiating spark from which The Post Office alit. Also, to the Mellon Foundation, funders of an Opera Fusion: New Works development workshop of The Post Office, led by co-artistic directors Evans Mirageas (Cincinnati Opera) and Robin Guarino (Cincinnati Conservatory of Music). Thank you also to Queen City Opera, which commissioned the work; conductor of that workshop, Isaac Selya; and the cast: Kenneth Shaw, Blythe Gaissert and Morgan Small, Cameron Howard, Eric Heatley, Michael Patterson, and Joe Stevens. The commission was made possible by the generous support of Kenneth Shaw, Brett Stover, Drs. Catharina and Robert Toltzis, Cincinnati's ArtsWave Pride, and numerous other donors. Purchase College/SUNY provided us space to workshop the libretto with students from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts; thanks to the student actors who participated: Jade Cook, Elizabeth Cuite, Trygve Gundersen, Nora Helay, and Alexander Uzobuife. Gratitude to Elizabeth Murphy, Grid Books, publisher of The Post Office: An Opera in Poems, the libretto in book form. Thanks, also, to Andy Sandberg and the Hermitage Artist Retreat, where a residency allowed for the time and space to outline the libretto.
AOP's Special Thanks goes to Julius Abrahams, James Matthew Daniel, Rick Davidson, Dorothy Faux, Linda Hunter, Diana Solomon-Glover, Paul Kerekes, Boot Kumthip, Sarah Peet, Steven Pisano, Thomas Smith, Kyle P. Walker, and Michael Wiseman. Corporate Partners include A.R.T./NY, Destination Hotels, The Lodge at Spruce Peak, The Round Hearth, and OPERA America.
