Ongoing 2025

The Isabella Project

For the past year and a half I have been involved in writing a play and libretto about Victorian traveler and travel writer Isabella Bird. Bird's *A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains* has been the main inspiration for my work, but I have supplemented that with biographical reading and, of course, many trips to Colorado. This September, I hope to travel to Scotland and spend time in Edinburgh and Mull (where Isabella and Henrietta, her sister, lived.

HER ROCKY MOUNTAIN, a libretto

My libretto writing efforts have been greatly assisted by Guerilla Opera, especially, two libretto writing workshops led by poet and librettist Kendra Preston Leonard. www.guerillaopera.org.

HER ROCKY MOUNTAIN: Brief Synopsis

Victorian traveler, travel writer, and invalid Isabella Bird (1831-1904) arrives in Estes Park, Colorado in 1873, believing that the Colorado air will cure her of her (mostly psychosomatic) ailments. She persuades a guide, trapper, and local ne’er do well Mountain Jim, to take her up Long’s Peak, (14,700), to this day one of Colorado’s most challenging climbs.

For Mountain Jim, taking Isabella up Long’s Peak is his chance to show that he can be a skilled guide and a gentleman. He does all that and more, but makes the mistake of falling in love with Isabella in doing so.

How Isabella and Jim navigate the Long’s Peak climb and its aftermath- Jim’s declarations of love while refusing to quit drinking- is the subject of HER ROCKY MOUNTAIN, a 90-minute, 8 (4W, 4) character comic opera that asks: Can a person really have a second chance?

I am looking for a composer who is interested in this story, set in late 1800s American West, and inspired by Isabella Bird’s A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. Want to know more? Contact me on the contact page. I can provide an excerpt/ or a full-length version of the libretto.

THE BIRD SISTERS GO BEYOND, a straight play about Isabella Bird and Henrietta Bird

The BIrd Sisters Go Beyond: Brief Synopsis

THE BIRD SISTERS GO BEYOND refers to intrepid Victorian adventurer Isabella Bird, best known for her A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, and her sister, Henrietta Bird. History tells us that Isabella was the adventurer and Henrietta was the homebody and receiver of Isabella’s letters about her adventures. My play attempts to look more carefully at this sister relationship and tease out another reality. Did Henrietta have hopes and dreams? Did Isabella encourage them or did she prevent Henrietta from becoming the another Bird adventurer? The other two characters are Rocky Mountain Jim, a one-eyed scout Isabella falls in love with during her stay in Estes Park Colorado, and Dr. John Bishop, the Scottish doctor who cared for Henrietta during her lifetime, then married Isabella.

The play is set in late 1800s Edinburgh and Isle of Mull, Scotland, with flashbacks to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Script available upon request.

For more information about Isabella Bird and her stay in Colorado:

https://www.cogreatwomen.org/?s=isabella+bird&id=49827

https://100princes-street.com/discover/stay-local/isabella-bird

Finalist

Thrown Stone "Persuasion" Commission 2025 https://thrownstone.org/heaven

Her Story is… publishes poetry books!