James (Jim) Lopata
James (Jim) Lopata is a playwright, composer, Zen meditation teacher, and writer whose work lives at the intersection of faith, queerness, and institutional life. His new original musical, Mass Drag, excavates a largely forgotten piece of church history—the medieval practice of same-sex union rites, conducted by priests and blessed at the altar—and asks how institutions change their moral positions, and what it costs them to pretend they haven't. The world premiere is at the Rochester Fringe Festival in September 2026, with campus engagements already confirmed. Jim holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and studied playwriting with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott at Boston University. He spent a decade as a cantor at St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan, founded the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce, and has been practicing Zen for over thirty years — approaching dharma transmission under his teacher name James Shōun Lopata. His journalism has appeared in NPR, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and Governing. He recently published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on organizational culture and community sustainability. Jim lives in Rochester, NY, where he leads Still ROC, a weekly Buddhist meditation community, and is currently finishing his first novel and his first musical simultaneously—which is either very brave or very unwise.