Royce Vavrek is a Canadian-born Brooklyn-based librettist, playwright, dance scenarist, musical theatre writer and filmmaker known for his collaborations with composers David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Mikael Karlsson, Ricky Ian Gordon, Paola Prestini and Du Yun, soprano Lauren Worsham, producers Beth Morrison and Lawrence Edelson, and conductors Steven Osgood, Julian Wachner and Alan Pierson.

He has been called "the indie Hofmannsthal", a "Metastasio of the downtown opera scene", "an exemplary creator of operatic prose", and "one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world".

[8] Vavrek has suggested that his work is heavily influenced by cinematic auteurs including Neil LaBute, Lars von Trier, Catherine Breillat, Wong Kar-Wai, Mike Leigh, Larry Clark, playwrights Martin McDonagh and Sam Shepard, novelists Richard Ford, Miriam Toews and Larry McMurtry and Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards.

[13][14][15] With soprano Lauren Worsham, Vavrek is the co-founder and co-artistic director of downtown opera-theater company The Coterie.

Through a series of concerts that often function as incubators for larger projects, the company has presented world premieres by many young operatic and musical theater composers including Rachel Peters, Jeff Myers, Kyle Jarrow, Paola Prestini, Cristian Amigo, Matt Marks, Mark Baechle, Christine Donkin, Joshua Schmidt, Julia Meinwald and Andrew Gerle.