BIOGRAPHY
Alan Olejniczak is an opera librettist and playwright based in San Francisco. His operas, including Atlas of Remote Islands (2023) and Unbound, (2021) with music by Nathan Hall, and Death of Ivan Ilych (2021) with music by John Young. In 2023, Alan premiered his first oratorio, Yosef and the Counseling Angel, with music by Cole Thomason-Redus and his musical-drama Concerto with The Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma in partnership with The Oklahoma City Philharmonic.
In 2024, Alan will workshop his opera Midnight to Midnight with Dante de Silva and Synchromy at the Wende Museum in Culver City during the World Opera Forum and the Opera America Conference in Los Angeles . He will also premiere his short opera, On Our Way, with music by Nathan Wasner with Opera on Tap Colorado. Alan is also the Playwright in Residence with The Proscenium, a London-based online theatre company. Their first season includes his plays Next of Kin, Helt Texas, and his adaptation of A Christmas Carol with David Ricardo-Pearce. His upcoming plays include Workforce and Plunder, written with writing lead, Carl Prekopp. Alan was the Artist in Residence for Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park and the first playwright ever selected by the National Parks Arts Foundation. Alan’s other artist residencies include: Micro Galleries in Pātan, Nepal; Nes Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland; Nocefresca in Milis, Sardinia; along with the prestigious The Arctic Circle Residency, sailing the icy waters around Svalbard. Alan will return to Svalbard in August 2024, for another residency for their Alumni Expedition. Alan is currently an Opera Committee Member of the Dramatist Guild. He is also member of Opera America, The National Opera Association, and a former board member of Opera Parallèle and Theater Bay Area. Full Resume Becoming a storyteller is another reinvention for Alan. In past lives, he was a wine professional for twelve years, started his career at the City Grill in Atlanta and ending as the Sommelier of the Dining Room of the Ritz Carton - Buckhead, a Mobil Five-Star, AAA Five Diamond restaurant. Alan then went on to become a Special Educator working for sixteen years with elementary and middle-school students with a focus on reading acquisition. "How in the heck do you pronounce that last name?" OH/la/KNEE/check |
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