Patrick Lazour Named Boston College's 2026-27 Monan Professor

Patrick Lazour, an accomplished writer, lyricist, and playwright—and a 2013 alumnus of Boston College—has returned to his alma mater as the University's 2026-27 Monan Professor in Theatre Arts.

This fall, he is teaching a Musical Theatre Performance Workshop open to majors and minors in the BC Theatre Department. 

His students are learning about, and getting hands-on experience with, the skills to thrive in musical theater spaces. They are exploring all aspects of performance, particularly how to balance the many foci required to act, dance, and sing simultaneously.

“Patrick Lazour is exactly the kind of artist the Monan Professorship was designed to bring to campus,” said Theatre Department Chair Courtney Elkin Mohler, a BC associate professor of Theatre.

Lazour will also direct a new musical adaptation of Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” which he wrote with his brother and professional collaborator Daniel Lazour. 

It features music by Mark Sonnenblick of KPOP Demon Hunters fame, organizers note. The production debuts November 18-22 on the main stage of BC's Robsham Theater Arts Center.  

“The work he and Daniel have developed, at many of our nations' most esteemed theatrical spaces, represents some of the most original thinking in musical theater right now,” Mohler added. “I'm thrilled that our majors and minors have the opportunity to learn directly from him this fall in an intensive workshop setting.”

The Lazours' musical “The Grand Room” was produced on campus with the Theatre Department when Patrick was a BC student. It is one of a number of original musicals written by him and his brother. 

Among them, “We Live In Cairo” and “Night Side Songs” premiered at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. Last year, The Lazours' “Night Side Songs” and “The Lunchbox” each had high-profile productions at Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in New York City and Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California, respectively.   

Lazour, with his brother, is a Jonathan Larson Grant and Richard Rodgers Award recipient.

The University's Monan Professorship in Theatre Arts was established in 2007 by a gift to Boston College in honor of the late University Chancellor and former BC President J. Donald Monan, S.J. The position, which also commemorates the late trustee E. Paul Robsham, enables the Theatre Department to bring nationally and internationally known professionals to Boston College to teach and work with undergraduate students.