Writer & Adapter
Rachel writes plays, libretti, adaptations from novels, stories and interviews as well as books on the craft of directing. Towards Embodied Performance: Directing and the Art of Composition is coming out in June 2024. It is a book that aims to bridge what is often considered “traditional” directing training and training into experimental, devised theatre-making. A guide for the generative director looking to make embodied performance with psychological and compositional truth. And a comprehensive history of Ripe Time’s work and Rachel’s journey as a director. Published by Routledge, Taylor and Francis. Available for pre-order in May! (click link above)
Rachel writes for opera and theatre collaboratively, across visual, sonic and textual disciplines. When adapting novels and stories, she collaborates with actors, designers, playwrights, composers, lyricists and/or dramaturgs. These trusted co-creators devise with her to filter those source texts into dialogue, and spoken word as well as visual imagery, choreography and design-infused events. Whether writing solo or collaborating with a playwright, Rachel and her creative team and ensemble generate and co-author performative ideas — a kind of three-dimensional writing that tells stories not just in language, but in space, time, and image. Below is a selected list of her writing projects.
Adaptations by Rachel in collaboration with composers:
In[finite] Time - upcoming
Adapted from “Time Passes”/ To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Original Score by Rinde Eckert
The Exchange
Short film, screenplay by Rachel Dickstein adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story from In Other Words
Script Sample
The World is Round
Book by Rachel Dickstein from Gertrude Stein, Music and Lyrics by Heather Christian
Script Sample | Audio Sample
Fire Throws
Adapted from Sophocles’ Antigone with music by Charming Hostess/Jewlia Eisenberg
Script Sample | Audio Sample
Betrothed
Adapted from Jhumpa Lahiri, Anton Chekhov and S. Ansky
Original Score by Vijay Iyer
Script Sample
Innocents
Adapted with Emily Morse from Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth.
Original Score by Katie Down
Adaptation Collaborations with Writers and Composers:
Septimus and Clarissa
Written by Ellen McLaughlin in collaboration with Ripe Time. Music by Gina Leishman.
Script Sample
Haruki Murakami’s Sleep
Written by Naomi Iizuka in collaboration with Ripe Time. Music by (and performed live by) NewBorn Trio (Katie Down, Jeffrey Lependorf, Miguel Frasconi).
Script Sample
Note: Scripts may not be used for public performances without express permission of the authors. They are provided here only for offering context on each production. If you are interested in producing one of these scripts please reach out through the contact link on this site.
Background image featuring Kristen Sieh in The World is Round at BAM-Fisher. Photo by Todd France Photography.