Creative Team
Lisa DeSpain - Composer
LISA DESPAIN is a jazz pianist turned composer working in the multiverse of opera, musicals, film, dance, and concert works. That Hellbound Train is her passionate tribute to America’s unique musical heritage; roots, hillbilly, gospel, jazz, and the blues.
Lisa’s operatic works include Staggerwing (winner of the 2020 Zepick Modern Opera Prize,) Men I’m Not Married To (Cleveland Opera Theatre,) and No Ladies in the Lady’s Book (Utah Opera) with librettist Rachel J. Peters. Song of the Nightingale (On Site Opera/Arts Brookfield) premieres in September 2023 at the Winter Garden Atrium, NYC.
Her musical theatre works include Storyville (lyrics by Oscar-Award winner, Kristen Anderson-Lopez) and Like, I Care! (Tale of a Middle School Scrooge.) She is the “go-to” arranger for Broadway hits for the choral market (Alfred Music) including Hamilton, In the Heights, Next to Normal, Funny Girl, and more.
Concert works highlights include: American Nativity (New Haven Symphony Orchestra,) Rise & Fall, String Quartet No. 1 (Cassatt String Quartet/Barlow Endowment,) The Bicycle Shoppe, (US Air Force Band of Flight - honoring the Wright Brothers Centennial,) and Dreaming in the Land of Blue Oz (ASCAP Commission Honoring the Duke Ellington Centennial.)
Lisa is a Copland House Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, and an alumna of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop.
Lisa studied jazz piano under Ellis Marsalis in New Orleans and holds a BM in Composition from University of North Texas and an MM in Jazz from Manhattan School of Music. She is a Professor of Music at CUNY (City University of New York.)
She can also deadlift 210 lbs and ran away with the circus - twice.
David Simpatico - Librettist
DAVID SIMPATICO has been presented at major theatres around the globe, including London’s Hammersmith Apollo, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Lincoln Center/Avery Fisher Hall, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Franklin Furnace and New York Public Theatre.
His grand opera, The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing, with music by Justine F. Chen, received its world premiere at Chicago Opera Theater in March, 2023, directed by Peter Rothstein. His musical adaptation of Twelve Angry Men, music and lyrics by Michael Holland, received its world premiere production in June, 2022 at Theatre Latte Da in Minneapolis.
Career highlights include: The Screams of Kitty Genovese, (winner Jonathan Larson Award; music by Will Todd); book/stage adaptation of Disney’s High School Musical; libretto for choral symphony, Garden of Light (composer Aaron Jay Kernis). Plays include: Ex-Gay Bar, Wilde about Whitman, Waiting for the Ball to Drop, Secret of Life, Macs, and Mary.
David is an alumnus of the Composer Librettist Development Program at American Lyric Theater. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. He has received support from Edward Albee Foundation, Millay Colony, NY Theatre Workshop, Eugene O’Neill Foundation and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. David is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and with playwright Darrah Cloud, is co-founder of A Howl of Playwrights.
Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch is one of America’s greatest fiction writers of Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy. Best known as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the Alfred Hitchcock film, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels.
Bloch received the Hugo Award in 1959 for his short story “That Hellbound Train.” Additional awards include the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award.
His career lasted over 60 years, including 30 years as a writer for Hollywood film and T.V.
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