The Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation was a foundation started in 1997 by the family and friends of Jonathan Larson, composer of the musical Rent . From 1997 to 2008, the foundation awarded grants to musical theatre composers, lyricists and book writers. Following the 2008 grants, the program was shifted to the American Theatre Wing, where it continues as the Jonathan Larson Grants. [1]
Rent is a rock musical with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson. Loosely based on the 1896 opera La bohème by Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica, and Giuseppe Giacosa, it tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lower Manhattan's East Village, in the thriving days of the bohemian culture of Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS.
Jonathan David Larson was an American composer, lyricist and playwright most famous for writing the musicals Rent and Tick, Tick... Boom!, which explored the social issues of multiculturalism, substance use disorder, and homophobia. He received three posthumous Tony Awards and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Rent.
Bree Lowdermilk is an American musical theater composer and lyricist.
The Vineyard Theatre is a 120-seat Off-Broadway non-profit theatre company, located at 108 East 15th Street in Manhattan, New York City, near Union Square. Founded in 1981 by Barbara Zinn Krieger, the Vineyard states that its goal is "to give daring artists a safe space to create exhilarating, original theatre." The company is operated by Vineyard Theatre and Workshop Center Inc., a nonprofit organization.
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, known together as Pasek and Paul, are an American songwriting duo and composing team for musical theater, films and television. Their theater works include A Christmas Story, Dogfight, Edges, Dear Evan Hansen, and James and the Giant Peach. Their original songs have been featured in Only Murders in the Building, Sesame Street,Welcome to Wrexham, Harlem, Smash and in the films Aladdin, Trolls, Pink: All I Know So Far, La La Land, for which they won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "City of Stars", and The Greatest Showman. Their work on the original musical Dear Evan Hansen has received widespread critical acclaim and earned them the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical and Best Original Score. In 2022, they won the Tony Award for Best Musical for serving as producers for the Broadway production of Michael R. Jackson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop.
Laurence Crawford "Larry" O'Keefe is an American composer and lyricist for Broadway musicals, film and television. He won the 2001 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Musical as composer for Bat Boy: The Musical.
Justin Paul is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing songs for films such as La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017), and the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, all of which he co-wrote with his songwriting partner, Benj Pasek.
Benj Pasek is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing songs for films such as La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017), and the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, all of which he co-wrote with his songwriting partner, Justin Paul.
Edges is a work of musical theatre by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul. This work is a song cycle about coming of age, growth and self-discovery of people mostly in their 20s. Its most famous song, "Be My Friend", has come to be commonly known as the "Facebook song".
Neil Bartram is a musical theatre composer/lyricist based in New York. Bartram is the composer and lyricist of Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Theory of Relativity and Broadway's The Story of My Life with book writer Brian Hill.
Ryan Scott Oliver is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. He is a 2011 Lucille Lortel Award Nominee and the recipient of both the 2009 Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater. Oliver is an adjunct professor at Pace University in New York, and Artistic Director of the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program in California. He received his B.A. in Music Composition from UCLA and his M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He is also the creator of the blog Crazytown and a member of ASCAP. Oliver's work has been performed at the Writers Guild Awards, Off Broadway in TheatreWorksUSA's We the People, and in countless showcases.
Douglas J. Cohen is an American composer and lyricist. He is a member of ASCAP, BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, and the Dramatists Guild of America.
Andrew Gerle is an American composer and pianist known for his musical adaptation of "Meet John Doe" with librettist Eddie Sugarman which premiered at the Ford's Theater in Washington. He is the recipient of four Richard Rodgers Awards administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Jonathan Larson Grant. His opera "The Beach", a collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek was presented on May 14, 2011 as part of New York City Opera's VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab.
Miller & Tysen are an American musical theater songwriting team consisting of composer Chris Miller and lyricist Nathan Tysen. They started collaborating in 1999 at New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Together they have written the scores to Tuck Everlasting, The Burnt Part Boys, Fugitive Songs, and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. They have written the book, music, and lyrics to Revival and Dreamland. Their television work includes songs for Sesame Street, Elmo’s World, and The Electric Company.
Sara Cooper is a New York-based playwright-lyricist and librettist.
Michael R. Jackson is an American playwright, composer, and lyricist, best known for his musical A Strange Loop, which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical. He is originally from Detroit.
Steven Jaret Lutvak was an American composer who worked in musical theatre, film, and television. He was best known for writing the music and co-writing the lyrics for the musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2014.
Peter Mills is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. He won the third Fred Ebb award in 2007.
Tick, Tick... Boom! is a 2021 American biographical musical film directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda in his feature directorial debut. Written by Steven Levenson, who also serves as an executive producer, it is based on the stage musical of the same name by Jonathan Larson, a semi-autobiographical story about Larson writing a musical to enter into the theater industry. The film stars Andrew Garfield as Larson, alongside Robin de Jesús, Alexandra Shipp, Joshua Henry, Judith Light, and Vanessa Hudgens.
Benjamin Velez is an American composer and lyricist.