BIOGRAPHY

I am open to collaborating with composers and producers for new operas, oratorios, and adaptations.

Alan Olejniczak is a San Francisco-based opera librettist and playwright. His operas include: Minute to Midnight (2024), music by Dante De Silva; Petrov (2025) Sergey Nesterov; On Our Way (2024), Nathan Wasner; Atlas of Remote Islands (2023), and Unbound (2021), Nathan Hall; Death of Ivan Ilych (2021), John Young. Alan also created new English-language adaptations of Hector Berlioz's Beatrice + Benedict (2025) for Opera Orlando and Cunning Little Vixen for Cape Town Opera, premiering in July 2026. Alan is currently developing a re-imagined Così fan tutte for Pocket Opera. Other works include a nativity oratorio, Yosef and the Counseling Angel (2023), Cole Thomason-Redus, and his music-drama Concerto (2023) with The Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma in partnership with The Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Alan returns for a second year to lead Staging Stories, a libretto-writing workshop for South African writers for Cape Town Opera in 2026. Alan is currently a member of the Dramatist Guild's Opera Committee and the Advisory Council of Opera Parallèle. You will find his profile on Operabase. 
 
Alan is also a Resident Writer for The Proscenium. This London-based online theatre company features his plays Next of Kin and Helt Texas, as well as an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, written in collaboration with David Ricardo-Pearce. Alan looks forward to Transgress, his upcoming audiodrama in Spring 2026.  
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Artist residencies are an important part of Alan's writing practice. Alan was the Artist in Residence for Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and the first playwright ever selected by the National Parks Arts Foundation. His other residencies include: Micro Galleries in Pātan, Nepal; Nes Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland; Nocefresca in Milis, Sardinia; Château d'Orquevaux in France, and the prestigious Arctic Circle Residency, where he sailed the icy waters around Svalbard for two expeditions. 
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​Full Resume

Storytelling is another reinvention. Before becoming a writer, Alan spent twelve years in the wine industry, starting at City Grill in Atlanta and culminating as the Sommelier of the Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton—Buckhead, a Mobil Five-Star, AAA Five-Diamond restaurant. He then transitioned into the field of education, working as a special educator for sixteen years, with a primary focus on reading acquisition for elementary and middle school students.  

"How in the heck do you pronounce that last name?" OH/la/KNEE/check  ​