BRAD ALEXANDER (composer, The Ransom of Red Chief)
AMBROSE BIERCE (author, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge") was born in Horse Cave Creek, Ohio, in 1842, and fought in the Union Army, rising to lieutenant while being wounded twice. In 1871 he moved to England for four years, returning to America to write for The San Francisco Examiner, Cosmopolitan, and The New York American. The author of Write It Right and The Devil's Dictionary, he was the West Coast arbiter of literary taste for two decades. At the age of 72 he wandered off to Mexico never to be heard from again. One legend has it that he became attached to Pancho Villa's staff, and died in 1914.
JEFF BLUMENKRANTZ (composer, Precious Little Jewel, Woman With Pocketbook) is a member of the BMI Advanced Workshop, a participant in the Dramatists Guild's Musical Theatre Development Program, and a graduate of Northwestern University. As a performer, he has appeared on Broadway in Into the Woods, The Threepenny Opera, South Pacific, and Damn Yankees; and he was the recipient of the 1988 Mary Martin Award from the National Institute for Music Theater.
FRANCESCA BLUMENTHAL (librettist/lyricist/composer, Roman Fever)
MORRIS BOBROW (librettist/lyricist/composer, Love and Money)
JOYCE BRAMBERG (composer/lyricist/librettist, The Hook)
HELEN CHAYEFSKY (librettist/lyricist, The Ransom of Red Chief)
KATE CHOPIN (author, "The Story of an Hour") was born Katherine O'Flaherty in 1851 in St. Louis. Her novel The Awakening was extremely controversial when published and is today considered a seminal feminist work. When she was four, her father died in a railroad accident and she was reared by three generations of women. At 17, she married Oscar Chopin, who encouraged her unorthodox independence. They lived in Louisiana until Oscar's death from swamp fever, when Kate returned to St. Louis to live with her mother, who died the next year. Four years later, at age 38, her first story was published. Kate Chopin died in 1904.
LISA-CATHERINE COHEN (lyricist/co-librettist, Remember Dancing) is known throughout the world for her lyrics, including songs which have reached number one on pop charts in South America, with composer Romano Musumarra, and France, with composer David Hallyday (along with seven top-fives there as well). Greenpeace is presently broadcasting a video of her song "Tears of the Earth" throughout the former Commonwealth of Independent States to raise funds for the children of Chernobyl. She and David Pomeranz have been writing together since 1977.
JOHN COLLIER (author, "The Chaser")
CHRISTOPHER DURANG (librettist/lyricist, Ubu Lear)
JACK FELDMAN (co-lyricist, Away to Pago Pago) wrote the lyrics for the Disney film Newsies, with music by Alan Menken, starring Robert Duvall and Ann-Margret. Playwrights Horizons produced his musicals Coming Attractions, co-written with Bruce Sussman and Ted Tally, and Miami, co-written by Bruce Sussman and Wendy Wasserstein. With Albert Innaurato and Christopher Durang, Mr Feldman wrote Idiots Karamazov, produced by Yale Repertory Theater. His songs have been performed by Barry Manilow, Ronnie Milsap, Bette Midler, Shirley Bassey, Lily Tomlin, and Kid Creole, among countless others.
NANCY FORD (composer, Space for Two) composed the music for I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road, with book and lyrics by Gretchen Cryer, produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival and subsequently across the U.S. and Canada. She composed the music for The Last Sweet Days of Isaac, Shelter, and Eleanor, also all with book and lyrics by Ms Cryer. Ms Ford has been a scriptwriter for daytime television for 20 years, currently writing for As the World Turns. Her work has received two Emmys, an Obie, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and two Writers Guild Awards.
ENID FUTTERMAN (lyricist, An Open Window) wrote the libretto for Yours, Anne based on The Diary of Anne Frank, with music by Michael Cohen, which was produced off-Broadway in 1985, and subsequently in England, Japan, and the U.S., most recently by the New York State Theater Institute in Albany. She also wrote the book and lyrics for Portrait of Jennie, with music by Howard Marren, which won both the Richard Rodgers Award and the Seagrams Award, and has been produced at the Berkshire Theater Festival and in Japan.
GEORGE GERSHWIN (composer, Blue Monday) was one of the great composers of the Twentieth Century. Born in Brooklyn in 1898, by age 15 he was already working as a pianist and accompanist to vaudeville stars. Shows he composed included Porgy and Bess, Strike Up the Band, and Of Thee I Sing; while his songs ranged from "Swanee" to "Summertime" to "I Got Rhythm". Mr Gershwin's jazz concerto Rhapsody in Blue and his orchestral work An American in Paris remain major milestones in music history and underscore his genius. Mr Gershwin died at the age of 38 in Los Angeles.
O.HENRY (author, "The Furnished Room", "The Ransom of Red Chief", and "The Hypothesis of Failure") was born William Sydney Porter in Polecat Creek, North Carolina, in 1862. While a bank teller in Austin, Texas, he was accused of embezzlement (though it's uncertain if he was simply careless in a job he found boring) and fled to Honduras. His wife had tuberculosis and was unable to join him, so he returned to serve three years in prison, during which time she died. O. Henry wrote many of his most famous stories, including "The Gift of the Magi," "The Green Door", and "The Ransom of Red Chief" for The New York World in 1903 and 1904. He died in 1910 in New York City.
DAVID IVES (lyricist/librettist, Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread) is a graduate of Yale Drama School. His one-acts were a staple of the Manhattan Punch Line Theatre's Festival of One Act Comedies for five years, and his The Sure Thing is reprinted in The Best American Short Plays of 1990. The Secret Garden, an opera he created with composer Greg Pliska, was produced by the Philadelphia Opera Theatre in 1991. His All in the Timing played off-Broadway at the John Houseman Theater in New York for over a year and subsequently all across America.
DOUG KATSAROS (composer, Suds and Lovers)
SARAGAIL KATZMAN (composer/lyricist/librettist, The Furnished Room) also wrote The Alexandria Municipal Reading Room, which was produced by the Quaigh Theater in New York City and the Chocolate Bayou Theater in Houston, and published by Baker's Plays. She recorded the album, "A Joyful Noise!," has work in We Like Kids! songbooks published by Scott Foresman, has been heard nationally on public radio, and is the author of the children's novel, My Dog Ate It. Ms Katzman is currently creating music and lyrics for The Dybbuk, with book by Alan Lefkowitz, portions of which were showcased at Merkin Hall in New York. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, ASCAP, and the Richard Stimson Musical Theater Writing Workshop.
WALTER EDGAR KENNON (composer, Plaisir d'Amour)
ANNIE KESSLER (librettist/lyricist, Woman with Pocketbook)
MICHAEL KOPPY (incidental book and lyrics, conceiver) is a member of the Directors Guild of America; the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers; the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees; the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; and the Industrial Workers of the World.
KARL FREDRIK LUNDEBERG (incidental music, orchestrations) composed the music for In a Pig's Valise, written by Eric Overmyer and premiered at Center Stage in Baltimore. For American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, he composed and arranged the music for Jacques and his Master, The Changeling, and Andrei Serban's King Stag (co-composed with Eliot Goldenthal) which subsequently toured across the nation. He has performed or recorded with John Cage, Gladys Knight and Miroslav Vituous, among others, and has recorded three albums with his band, Full Circle, for Columbia Records, who will also release his first solo album this fall.
BARRY MANILOW (composer, Away to Pago Pago) has won Tony, Grammy, and Emmy Awards for his theater, recording and television work. His records have sold over sixty million copies worldwide, including seven million in one year. Mr Manilow's first musical, The Drunkard, opened in 1967 to become the third-longest running off-Broadway musical of all time. One of the pre-eminent superstars in world entertainment, his career as a composer also includes the TV musical film Copacabana, many memorable commercial themes, and scores for the animated films The Pebble and the Penguin, Rapunzel, and Thumbelina.
SCOTT R. McKENZIE (vocal arrangements) has worked extensively as a conductor and musical director for both opera and musical theater. In New York City, Scott music directed several projects with Tony Award-winning director Thommie Walsh. In San Francisco, he has conducted productions of My One and Only, La Cage Aux Folles, Of Thee I Sing, along with work on countless revues and cabaret acts. Scott was vocal director on Michael Koppy's San Francisco productions of March of the Falsettos and the original workshop of Stories 1.0.
TERRENCE McNALLY (librettist/lyricist, Plaisir d'Amour)
RICHARD PEASLEE (composer, Ubu Lear)
BRUCE PEYTON (librettist, Pulp's Big Favor) conducted workshops for musical theater writers, under the auspices of BMI, ASCAP and Musical Theatre Works, for seven years. His play The Hazzard County Wonder was produced by the Virginia Stage Company, and his musical Feathertop, adapted with composer/lyricist Skip Kennon from Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, by the American Stage Festival, WPA Theater and Pennsylvania Stage Company. He has had play commissions from the New York Shakespeare Festival and Actors Theater of Louisville.
JOHN PIROMAN (librettist, Away to Pago Pago) has had his plays produced by the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Berkshire Theatre Festival, HOME for Contemporary Theater in New York City, Michigan Public Theater, Plaza Theater in Dallas, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater. His most recent play, Sons of Don Juan, was produced by the Asolo State Theater in Sarasota in 1992, and his television credits include St. Elsewhere and Latin Lovers, a series he created for HBO Independent Productions.
DAVID POMERANZ (composer/co-librettist, Remember Dancing) wrote music, lyrics and co-authored the book for Little Tramp, a musical on the life of Charlie Chaplin which opens on the London West End this spring. His songs have been featured in the West End Musical Time, and recorded by Kenny Rogers, John Denver, Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, Phoebe Snow, Kenny Loggins, the Hollies, Glen Campbell, Lou Rawls, and many others, garnering him numerous gold and platinum recording awards. David sang the theme on ABC's Perfect Strangers, and contributed music to the motion picture Big.
ELSA RAEL (librettist, Space for Two) was awarded a CAPS grant from New York State for her playwriting and also won the Playwriting Competition of the Alliance Theater of Atlanta, among many other similar competitions. Ms Rael currently has seven musicals in active repertory in regional theaters, and her play about Thomas Jefferson's 37-year affair with his slave Sally Hemings was produced by the Women's Interart Theatre in New York City. Her children's book, Marushka's Egg, was published by MacMillan.
MAE RICHARD (lyricist, Space for Two) wrote the lyrics for Tallulah, which starred Helen Gallagher off-Broadway. A cast album has become a "cult" item and was recently re-issued on CD. Among her other credits are lyrics for industrial shows for DuPont, RCA, Wyeth Laboratories, and others. Her lyrics have also been heard on NBC's Unicorn Tales, which won two Emmys and an award for Broadway-Type Score from Action for Children's Television. Her full-length musical Cut The Ribbons was produced off-Broadway at the Westside Theater in 1992, with music by Nancy Ford and others.
LIBBY SAINES (librettist/lyricist, Precious Little Jewel) is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a participant in their Musical Theatre Development Program. She is also a member of BMI's Musical Theater Workshops. She has seen two of her children's musicals produced, including the award-winning The Apple War, which was given a special production at the United Nations School in New York. Ms Saines is currently working as co-lyricist on an adaptation of Shaw's You Never Can Tell, and with Jeff Blumenkrantz, on The Other Franklin, a musical based on the life of Benjamin's son, William.
SAKI (author, "The Open Window") was born Hector Hugo Munro in Akyab, Burma, in 1870, the son of a Bengal Staff Corps colonel. Following his mother's death while he was still a child, he was sent to England for his education. He adopted the nom de plume Saki from the character of the cup-bearer in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and along with many short stories also wrote a history, The Rise of the Russian Empire, and the satirical Not So Stories. Refusing a commission in the British Army in World War I, he enlisted instead and was killed in battle at Beaumont Hamel, France, in 1916.
JUNE SIEGEL (librettist/lyricist, Suds and Lovers)
DAVID SPENCER (composer/lyricist, Pulp's Big Favor) wrote lyrics for Weird Romance, a science fiction anthology produced at the WPA Theater in New York City, with music by Alan Menken and book by Alan Brennert; book and lyrics for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, based on Mordecai Richler's novel, with music by Alan Menken; and adaptation and new English lyrics for the New York Shakespeare Festival's La Boheme starring Linda Ronstadt and Gary Morris. He's also written stories and scripts for episodic television and the novel Passing Fancy, based on the TV series Alien Nation, for Pocket Books.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (author, "The Bottle Imp") was born into the family of a lighthouse keeper in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850, and his short life was a constant journey in search of adventure. He fell in love with Mrs. Fanny Osbourne in France, and after she obtained a divorce they were married in 1879 in California. His first book was Treasure Island, followed by Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yet his masterpiece is generally considered to be Weir of Hermiston, which was unfinished at the time of his sudden death of apoplexy at age 44, in Apia, Samoa.
BRUCE SUSSMAN (co-lyricist, Away to Pago Pago) is the co-author, with Jack Feldman and Barry Manilow, of over 150 published and recorded songs which have earned him numerous gold and platinum records from around the world. His songs have been featured in many films, including Oliver & Company, Tribute, Foul Play, Pretty in Pink, and Off Beat, among others. For television he has co-authored scripts and songs for a variety of projects, including Big Fun on Swing Street, Copacabana, and the Emmy Award-winning children's series, Unicorn Tales.
TONI TENNILLE (composer, At Owl Creek Bridge) is probably best known as half of the duo, The Captain & Tennille, with her husband Daryl Dragon. Her composing, writing and performing have resulted in eight gold singles, five gold albums, one platinum single and two platinum albums. She co-wrote the musical Mother Earth, also with Ron Thronson, which toured the country prior to opening at the Belasco Theater on Broadway in 1972. Ms Tennille presently continues to tour with her husband, performs with her own jazz quartet, and headlines at pops concerts with major symphony orchestras across North America.
RON THRONSON (lyricist/librettist, At Owl Creek Bridge) has had twelve of his plays have been produced across Canada and the United States, including Mother Earth, also with music by Toni Tennille, and including four productions at South Coast Repertory Theater, which he helped found in 1964. Mr Thronson has directed over 50 commercial, regional theater and university theater productions, and joined the faculty of Chapman University in 1976.
PETER TOLAN (composer/lyricist/librettist, The Fertilization Opera) has been represented on the New York stage for the past four years in the Manhattan Punch Line Theatre's Festival of One-Act Comedies with Best Half Forward, Pillow Talk, The Fertilization Opera, and Stay Carl Stay. He was named best lyricist of a Broadway or off-Broadway show by the Burns Mantle Theatre Yearbook, The Best Plays of 1988-1989, for his work in Laughing Matters, a two-person off-Broadway revue he wrote and appeared in (with his partner Linda Wallem). Mr Tolan's television writing and producing includes Carol Burnett's Carol & Company, Home Improvement, Murphy Brown, Bill Crystal's HBO series Sessions, and The Larry Sanders Show, for which he received the Emmy Award for Best Comedy Writing.
KENNETH VEGA (composer/lyricist/librettist, The Bottle Imp) is a New Yorker transplanted from San Francisco, where his musical Cafe Depresso won the SF Theater Critics Award for Outstanding Musical Score. Cafe Depresso was given a staged reading at Musical Theatre Works in New York and a subsequent showcase production in 1991. Other San Francisco credits include Marco Polo and Berlin, 1932 (SF Critics Award), and two dance musicals for Jacques d'Amboise's National Dance Institute. Mr Vega is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.
EDITH WHARTON (author, "Roman Fever") was born Edith Newbold Jones in 1862, to an aristocratic New York City family. Her marriage to Teddy Wharton, twelve years her senior and a faithless husband, ended in divorce. She then left for Paris working to aide refugees during the first World War, and only returning to America once, to accept the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, The Age of Innocence. Her salon in Paris was frequented by the leading authors of the day, including Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, and Henry James. Edith Wharton died in 1937 and was buried in the American Cemetery at Versailles.
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