Artist in Residence: David Cote – Wednesday, October 28th, 2026 at 7pm
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About
Free event
Oratorio and opera librettist, theater critic, NYSCA award recipient, and Hubbard Hall Artist-In-Residence David Cote will discuss his work as an opera and oratorio writer with Interim Artistic Director Dan Costello. The event will include a short video presentation of his work, a discussion of his upcoming work-in-progress, including a commission for Albany Pro Musica, and an audience Q&A.
David Cote is an opera librettist, playwright, and critic based in New York City. Recent operas include Blind Injustice at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater and Lucidity, which premiered with On Site Opera in New York City and had its Northwest premiere at Seattle Opera. Lucidity is heading to La Monnaie in Brussels in 2027.
His plays include The Müch, Saint Joe, and Aristotle Punches Down, a National Playwrights Conference semifinalist. Previous operas include Blind Injustice for Cincinnati Opera; Three Way at Nashville Opera and BAM; The Scarlet Ibis at the Prototype festival; and We’ve Got Our Eye on You and 600 Square Feet, both with composer Nkeiru Okoye. He also wrote the text for Okoye’s Invitation to a Die-In, a Black Lives Matter piece for baritone and orchestra. Other vocal works include Cocoa Cantata, composed by Robert Paterson, and the dating-app song cycle In Real Life, created with Paterson.
Recordings include Blind Injustice (NAXOS), Three Way (American Modern Recordings), and In Real Life (AMR). Individual acts from Three Way have been presented by companies across the country, including Opera Memphis, Opera Orlando, Shreveport Opera, and Fargo Moorhead Opera.
Born and adopted in New Hampshire, David lives in Manhattan. He has held residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ucross, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, among others. He was selected for the inaugural Ecker Fellowship, in which the New England Foundation for Psychoanalysis pairs artists with psychoanalysts. He is a proud alumnus of Bard College.
As an actor, David worked with Richard Foreman, exiled Iranian auteur Assurbanipal Babilla, Richard Maxwell, Robert Cucuzza, and D. J. Mendel, among others. He directed Babilla’s monologue Something Something Über Alles (Das Jackpot) for its world premiere and its 2013 revival with Robert Honeywell, co-founder of Williamsburg’s Brick Theater. He also directed Honeywell in Matthew Freeman’s monologue The Sea The Mountains The Forest The City The Plain at the Brick.
David’s TV and theater reviews appear in The A. V. Club, Observer, 4 Columns, American Theatre, and elsewhere. He was Time Out New York’s longest-serving theater editor and chief drama critic. His writing has also appeared in Opera News, The Village Voice, The Guardian, and The New York Times. He is the author of companion books about the Broadway hits Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Wicked, Jersey Boys, and Spring Awakening. For the Best Plays Yearbook series, he contributed essays on Shining City, Blackbird, and The Receptionist. In the 1990s, he co-founded and edited the grassroots theater magazines OFF: a journal of alternative theater and EdgeNY.