(she/her/hers)

Music Director, Destiny of Desire

Deborah Wicks La Puma is a composer, music director and orchestrator. Her works include Elephant and Piggie’s: We Are in a Play! (Kennedy Center) and the upcoming Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience (Seattle Children’s Theatre) with Mo Willems. With playwright Karen Zacarías she has created OLIVÉRio: A Brazilian Twist on Dickens (Kennedy Center); Frida Libre (La Jolla Playhouse); Einstein Is a Dummy (Alliance Theatre) and Ella Enchanted (First Stage Milwaukee, based on the book by Gail Carson Levine).  

Other projects: Nobody's Perfect, a musical in English and American Sign Language, with creators Marlee Matlin and Doug Cooney, and Perdida, a Mexican folk musical based on Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, with playwright Kathleen Cahill. 

Awards: Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, a National Endowment for the Arts’ New American Works Grant, two Parents’ Choice Awards, an iParenting Media Award, an LA Ovation nomination for best original score, and two Helen Hayes nominations for Outstanding New Play. 

Other credits: Member of the board of directors of TYA USA/ASSITEJ International, ASCAP, and The Dramatists Guild.