About Us
With six decades of art creation between them, including the last two as close collaborators, Garrett Fisher and Ken Cerniglia have distilled insights from their epic and sometimes perilous artistic voyages into a simple practice anyone can employ to make friends with feedback. CULTIVATING FEEDBACK is a roadmap for creative success they wish they’d had when they embarked on their careers.
Garrett Fisher is a composer, writer, pianist, filmmaker, and teacher. The son of academics, he grew up in Michigan and Maine and had sabbaticals in Istanbul and London. After completing degrees in composition and English at Oberlin College, he moved to Seattle, where he formed the Fisher Ensemble.
Since 1994, Garrett has created over a dozen multimedia pieces that have been presented in the US and abroad. The New York Times describes his body of work as “a groundbreaking hybrid … a strong, unified and strikingly individual utterance of unambiguous beauty.” Recordings of Garrett’s music can be found on the BIS label, including The Passion of Saint Thomas More, which earned 10/10 from Classics Today as part of its 30-year/30-disc commemorative series.
Garrett’s signature East-meets-West style is inspired by formative childhood adventures, driven by voracious curiosity, and fueled by a passion for collaboration. Wall Street Journal critic Brett Campbell writes: “Among American composers of his generation, Garrett stands out because of the way he’s assimilated such diverse global musical and other artistic influences. … And he’s successfully created a strong collaborative process for making multimedia productions that may be a sustainable model.”
Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) produced the world premiere of Garrett’s chamber opera Kocho in New York City in 2011. Three years later, a collaboration between the 25th Anniversary Fisher Ensemble and Tokyo-based Noh master Munenori Takeda delivered the world premiere of Yoshinaka at Seattle’s ACT Theatre. Loyola Marymount University music department premiered Garrett’s Monticello Wakes (2015) and Passion Trilogy (2017) in Los Angeles, CA. Commissioned by BMP and inspired by the Noh play Obasute, Garrett’s opera-theatre composition Blood Moon – with a libretto by Ellen McLaughlin, dramaturgy by Ken Cerniglia, and direction by Rachel Dickstein – received its world premiere at the 2020 Prototype Festival in New York City.
During his long and winding career, Garrett has received all kinds of feedback – the good, the bad, and the surprisingly ugly – but regularly returns to the simple principles of CULTIVATING FEEDBACK to preserve his sanity and maintain his focus on continued growth for creative success.
Garrett is currently composing a new cycle of pieces for solo piano and has been exploring the capacities of YouTube and Instagram to distill and share his creative process while building community.
Ken Cerniglia is a dramaturg, scholar, educator, and organizational leader, born and raised in Los Angeles and educated at UC San Diego (psychology & theatre) and l’Universitat de Barcelona (Spanish literature).
Giving feedback to fellow theatre artists is an essential element of a dramaturg’s job. Ever since he embraced the mantle of his vocation with his first professional dramaturgy gig at D.C.’s Arena Stage back in the previous millennium, Ken has become a lifelong feedback detective, pursuing its seemingly endless mystery through diverse media, environments, and applications.
Known for his dramaturgy of the innovative Broadway hits Hadestown (8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical) and Peter and the Starcatcher (5 Tony Awards), Ken spent 16 years as resident dramaturg and literary manager for Disney Theatrical Productions, where he developed over 70 titles for Broadway, touring, international, and licensed productions, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Freaky Friday, Aladdin, Newsies, The Little Mermaid, High School Musical, Tarzan, and Marvel Spotlight, a collection of one-act plays with teenage superhero protagonists who tackle real-world problems in a diverse society.
Additional dramaturgical adventures have included the queer bilingual adaptation Romeo y Juliet by Karen Zacarías and KJ Sánchez (Cal Shakes); the chamber opera Blood Moon by Garrett Fisher and Ellen McLaughlin (PROTOTYPE 2020); and musical adaptations of Bud, Not Buddy, The Gift of Nothing, The Cricket in Times Square, and OLIVERio: A Twist on Dickens for young audiences (Kennedy Center).
Ken’s current musical projects include co-writing librettos for Atlantis, Laurel Canyon, and Dream and dramaturgy for Five Notes by Karen Zacarías and Gloria & Emily Estefan (directed by Michael Greif); The Ten by Nambi E. Kelley, Emily Phillips, and Future Cut (directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson); The Song of Bernadette by Rinne Groff, Robin Lerner & Frank Wildhorn (directed by Christopher Gattelli); Evening Train by Ursula Rani Sarma and Mick Flannery (directed by Julie Kelleher); and In My Own Little Corner: My Work in Progress with Bipolar Disorder by Chryssie Whitehead (directed by Bryan Knowlton).
Ken is past president of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), co-founder of the American Theatre Archive Project, and Artistic Director of Two Turns Theatre Company. He holds a Ph.D. in theatre history and criticism from the University of Washington, has three fabulous sons, and lives with his husband in Harlem, New York City, and San Mateo, California.