Les Epstein spent twenty years in theater and opera management, including seasons as education director and production coordinator for Opera Columbus (Ohio) and seven as the executive director for the Children’s Theatre of Winston-Salem (NC). He is also a seasoned stage director, librettist and playwright, and in those capacities has worked for such companies as The Piedmont Opera, Toledo Opera, Children’s Theatre of Winston-Salem, the Brock Center for the Arts, the Andy Griffith Playhouse, the Contemporary American Theatre, Columbus Light Opera, New York’s Washington Square Players, with which he made his Off-Off Broadway debut in 1986 and the Belfast Maskers Theatre. His work for the stage has been performed at the Belfast masker’s Theatre (Maine), Winston-Salem State University, Otterbein College and the Martin Luther King Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH). He currently teaches theater and literature at the Community High School in Roanoke, Virginia and is preparing a new folk opera based on the life of educator Lucy Addison slated for the Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival this winter. Les received undergraduate degrees in theater performance and English from Otterbein College, a Master’s in English from Miami (Ohio) University and continued with studies in literature at New York University and Theatre Education at The Ohio State University. He completed his teacher training at Mary Baldwin College.