Gregory Bonsignore (born 1983) is an International Playwright, television program creator, director for theatre, television and film, Producer, novelist, musical theatre librettist & lyricist, screenwriter, comedian and actor.
Bonsignore grew up in Houston, Texas. He has identified as neuroatypical and non-binary. He earned his bachelor's degree in storytelling at New York University, trained at the BBC in London, [1] and is a graduate of The "BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop". [2]
Bonsignore was Playwright in Residence at The Library of Alexandria in Egypt. His play "A Derbyshire Pub Quiz", a collaboration with Cultural Geographer George Jaramillo on Imagined Landscapes, premiered at The Royal Geographical Society's Annual Conference in Exeter, September 2015.,. [3]
Off-Broadway, he wrote the Book and Lyrics for the Musical Atomic , [4] behind the scenes of The Manhattan Project, (World-Premiere in Sydney - Winner Best Musical, Australia), Three (Clurman Theatre, Sam French Prize finalist), premiere at City Theatre's Best American Shorts Festival - Miami, [2] and wrote book/lyrics & directed "Gorgonzola: A Cautionary Sicilian Tale" a new musical, that premiered Off-Broadway in 2016, and won Best Musical, Best Music and Best Lyrics, Best Actor & Best Actress - more than any show in the festival's history. [5] Most recently his Broadway workshop of The Talented Mr. Ripley was selected for development by Stephen Schwartz in his ASCAP Workshop. [6]
In 2020, Bonsignore was deputy director for Michigan's Get Out the Vote campaign, where Grand Rapids' historically-Republican Kent County flipped Democratic, and again in Georgia for the 2021 Senate Run-Off Election. [7]
Bonsignore created the critically acclaimed cult comedy series Squad 85 (for Executive Producer Justin Lin), Writer/Director of the satirical film "...or Die" (Best Short - HBO Film Festival), credited as a writer for "The Webby Awards" and "Side by Side with Susan Blackwell", [8] worked for three years in NYC as a stand-up, and worked on many TV series, including Transformers: Rescue Bots , Homeland , Lie to Me , Three Rivers , In Plain Sight , Hustle , and a musical episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic - voted by fans as their Favorite Episode of the Series [9]
His 2019 feature, for Oprah Winfrey's HARPO Films - "Can You Tell Me How" about Sesame Street Creator Joan Ganz Cooney and Jim Henson was selected for The Blacklist (survey). [10] His children's illustrated book, "That's Betty: The Story of Betty White" was sold to Henry Holt and Company for a Fall 2021 release. The book follows a boy tasked with doing a presentation on a trailblazing woman, and for him, there's only one choice: Betty White. He gets a helping hand from a certain pioneer and icon who happens to be in the library on the same day. [11]
Lionel Bart was a British writer and composer of pop music and musicals. He wrote Tommy Steele's "Rock with the Caveman" and was the sole creator of the musical Oliver! (1960). With Oliver! and his work alongside theatre director Joan Littlewood at Theatre Royal, Stratford East, he played an instrumental role in the 1960s birth of the British musical theatre scene after an era when American musicals had dominated the West End.
Maury Yeston is an American composer, lyricist and music theorist.
Charles Strouse is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to such Broadway musicals as Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie.
Sunset Boulevard is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics and a book by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. It is based on the 1950 film of the same title.
Sheldon Mayer Harnick was an American lyricist and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as Fiorello!, She Loves Me, and Fiddler on the Roof.
Jeffrey Daniel Whitty is an American playwright, actor, and screenwriter.
Jeanine Tesori, known earlier in her career as Jeanine Levenson, is an American composer and musical arranger best known for her work in the theater. She is the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, with five Broadway musicals and six Tony Award nominations. She won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center, the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for Caroline, or Change, the 2015 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Fun Home, making them the first female writing team to win that award, and the 2023 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Kimberly Akimbo. She was named a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist twice for Fun Home and Soft Power.
Garry Chalk is a British-born Canadian actor. He has provided the voices for Optimus Primal of Beast Wars: Transformers and Beast Machines, as well as Optimus Prime in the anime English dubs of Transformers: Armada, Transformers Energon, and Transformers: Cybertron. He has lent his voice to over 30 animated television series and has been in films such as The Fly II, Godzilla and Freddy vs. Jason. He played the recurring role of Col. Chekov on Stargate SG-1. He is perhaps best known for his recurring role as Inspector Andrew Pawlachuk on Cold Squad.
Scott David Frankel is an American composer.
Jeff Blumenkrantz is an American actor, composer and lyricist.
Steven Sater is a Tony Award, Grammy Award, and Laurence Olivier Award-winning American poet, playwright, lyricist, television writer and screenwriter. He is best known for writing the book and lyrics for the Tony Award-winning 2006 Broadway musical Spring Awakening.
Alice Ripley is an American actress, singer, songwriter and mixed media artist. She is known, in particular, for her various roles on Broadway in musicals, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal and Side Show. She most recently played three roles in the short-lived Broadway musical, American Psycho. Alice Ripley has released albums with her band, RIPLEY, including the single, "Beautiful Eyes", released in February 2012. She also performs as a solo artist, while in February 2011 she released Alice Ripley Daily Practice, Volume 1, a stripped-down collection of acoustic rock covers.
Henry Krieger is an American musical theatre composer. He most notably wrote the music for the Broadway shows Dreamgirls, The Tap Dance Kid (1983), and Side Show (1997).
Kyle Jarrow is a Los Angeles–based writer and rock musician.
Jeff Bowen is an American composer, lyricist and actor. He is best known as one of the authors and stars of the Broadway musical [title of show]. He also wrote the music and lyrics to the musical, Now. Here. This. with his [title of show] collaborators Hunter Bell, Susan Blackwell, Michael Berresse, Heidi Blickenstaff and Larry Pressgrove. The show was presented in June 2012 at The Vineyard Theatre. He is currently writing an original musical, Other World with Hunter Bell and Ann McNamee.
Joe DiPietro is an American playwright, lyricist and author. He is best known for the Tony Award-winning musical Memphis, for which he won the Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score as well as for writing the book and lyrics for the long-running off-Broadway show I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.
Gilles Chiasson is an American producer, director, composer, writer and actor. While he first came to prominence as an actor, particularly in the original cast of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning RENT, Chiasson went on to work in film and television development, then theater administration and operations, and now works in education. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife Sherri Parker Lee and their two sons. He is a theater teacher at a high school in Los Angeles.
The Last Smoker in America is a four-character, one-act musical comedy featuring book and lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Peter Melnick. The Last Smoker in America opened Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre in 2012, after developmental readings in 2005 at the Rubicon Theatre Company, a workshop production at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2009, and having its world premiere at Contemporary American Theatre Company (CATCO), Columbus, Ohio in 2010.
Drew Gasparini is a songwriter and musical theatre composer/lyricist, best known for writing songs for season 2 of Smash, as well as the scores for the Broadway musicals The Karate Kid, Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical, It's Kind of a Funny Story, and more..
Dave Malloy is an American composer, playwright, lyricist, and actor. He has written several theatrical works, often based on classic works of literature. They include Moby-Dick, an adaptation of Herman Melville's classic novel; Octet, a chamber choir musical about internet addiction; Preludes, a musical fantasia set in the mind of romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff; Ghost Quartet, a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey; and the Tony Award winning Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on War and Peace.