ELISE THORON

Elise Thoron writes music theater pieces and collaborates with musicians who usually don’t work in theater to bring them to life. She enjoys working cross-culturally and story telling in multiple languages. Other music theater pieces include Green Violin based on murals Marc Chagall painted for the first Soviet Yiddish Theater in Moscow, 1920, with score by Frank London of The Klezmatics; and Life? or Theater? a 3 Color Opera, based on the paintings of a young German artist, Charlotte Salomon, with score by Gary Fagin. Her new piece, The THIEF of Venice, is about 16C Venetian poet and courtesan, Veronica Franco, includes Sephardic song and Canti Amorosi. Her plays have been performed in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, Philly, Hartford, and once in a blue moon in New York. You can read Green Violin in the anthology: 9 Contemporary Jewish Plays (available through Amazon).

When not writing, she’s directing and developing new work, such as her current project COUNTY OF KINGS: the beautiful struggle with Tony award winning poet Lemon Andersen at the Public Theater, or running theater exchanges in Russia, (which her friends think is actually a spy ring). Her first writing for the stage was to adapt and direct The Great Gatsby in Russian at a The Pushkin Theater in Moscow, where it ran in repertory for over nine years. Elise co-founded Literature to Life at American Place Theatre (where she is Associate Artistic Director), a theater literacy program that is now nation wide. Her adaptation of Sandra Cisneros’ House on Mango Street has been in rep for over twelve years.