JEFFREY A. LOCKWOOD

The locusts are coming!!! Well, at least Locust: The Opera (an environmental murder mystery with music by Anne Guzzo, libretto by Jeff Lockwood, and set/costumes by Ashley Carlisle) is coming to Laramie. And bringing an opera to the high plains of Wyoming raises some eyebrows and questions. Laramie—really? Well, yes. For centuries opera was the performance art of the people, rather than the wealthy elites. The nobility was often satirized, resulting in some wonderfully u

Few people grasp the complexities of science and still fewer engage the richness of opera—so why not combine the two?! This seems absurd, but the venture is also ridiculously intriguing. I teamed up with Dr. Anne Guzzo—an acclaimed composer in the Department of Music—to propose writing and producing a chamber opera about the Rocky Mountain locust. If you think that’s remarkable, what’s really amazing is that we received funding. Our pitch was creative and maybe even plausi

As I conduct research for my next mystery book, I’ve been delving into the events that shaped America in 1981. Exploring how life looked at that time helps to contextualize the current state of the world. Today, we’re convinced that international politics are an unprecedented disaster and domestic conflicts are tearing apart the nation. While things look pretty grim in 2015, let’s consider what was happening 35 years ago. In January, 53 American hostages were finally relea