Peter Duchan is an American playwright and screenwriter, best known for the film Breaking Upwards and the musical Dogfight. He was also personal assistant to actor-director-producer Bob Balaban. [1] He graduated from Northwestern University, where he participated in the Creative Writing for Media Program. [2]
He was Associate Producer of Breaking Upwards , which he co-wrote with director Daryl Wein and actress Zoe-Lister Jones. [3] [4] The film premiered at the SXSW Film Festival (March, 2009) and was released in theaters by IFC Films on April 2, 2010. [5] [6] His short film Unlocked, also a collaboration with Wein, was an Official Selection of numerous festivals, including the Gijon International Film Festival in 2006 and the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007. [7] [8]
He wrote the book of the stage musical adaptation of Dogfight , Nancy Savoca's 1991 film starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. [9] [10] [11] The musical, featuring a score by the team, Pasek and Paul, premiered Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre on July 16, 2012, after previews from June 27. It was directed by Joe Mantello and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli. [12]
The production earned two 2013 Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Choreographer (Christopher Gattelli). [13] It was nominated for five 2013 Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical and Outstanding Book of a Musical. [14] Additionally, the show was nominated for Drama League Awards for Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical and Distinguished Performance (Lindsay Mendez), as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical (Lindsay Mendez). [15] [16] During its development, the musical was the recipient of the 2011 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. [17]
Dogfight is a 1991 period coming-of-age drama film set in San Francisco, California, during the 1960s and directed by Nancy Savoca. The film explores the love between an 18-year-old Marine, Lance Corporal Eddie Birdlace on his way to Vietnam, and a young woman, Rose Fenny.
Jeanine Tesori 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 five 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, and the 2015 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Fun Home, making them the first female writing team to win that award. She was named a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist twice for Fun Home and Soft Power.
Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has received an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing for Driving Miss Daisy. He is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Altar Boyz is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker and book by Kevin Del Aguila. Centering on a fictitious Christian boy band from Ohio, the show satirizes, among other things, the phenomenon of boy bands and the popularity of Christian-themed music in contemporary American culture. It began an Off Broadway run on March 1, 2005, and closed on January 10, 2010, after sixteen previews and 2,032 regular performances, making it the 9th longest-running Off-Broadway musical of all time.
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for her play Sweat. She was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times.
Second Stage Theater is a theater company founded in 1979 by Robyn Goodman and Carole Rothman and located in Manhattan, New York City. It produces both new plays and revivals of contemporary American plays by new playwrights and established writers. The company has two off-Broadway theaters, their main stage, the Tony Kiser Theater at 305 West 43rd Street on the corner of Eighth Avenue near the Theater District, and the McGinn/Cazale Theater at 2162 Broadway at 76th Street on the Upper West Side. In April 2015, the company bought the Helen Hayes Theater, a Broadway theater.
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 works include A Christmas Story, Dogfight, Edges, Dear Evan Hansen, and James and the Giant Peach. Their original songs have been featured on NBC's Smash and in the films 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 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.
The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986. They are produced by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Foundation, with additional support from the Theatre Development Fund.
Zoe Lister-Jones is an American actress and filmmaker who co-starred as Jen Collins Short in the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces from 2015 to 2019. She is also known for her roles in the television shows Delocated (2009–2010), Whitney (2011–2013), and New Girl (2015). Lister-Jones made her directorial debut with the 2017 comedy-drama film Band Aid. In 2020, she wrote and directed the horror film The Craft: Legacy. She also co-wrote and co-directed the comedy-drama film How It Ends (2021) with Daryl Wein.
Alex Timbers is an American writer and director and the recipient of Tony, Golden Globe, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and London Evening Standard Awards, as well as two OBIE and Lucile Lortel Awards. He also received the 2019 Drama League Founder's Award for Excellence in Directing and the 2016 Jerome Robbins Award for Directing. He was nominated for a 2020 Grammy Award. For his work on Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Timbers won a 2021 Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical.
Justin Paul is an American theater and television composer and lyricist best known for his works The Greatest Showman, La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, all of which he co-wrote with his songwriting partner, Benj Pasek.
Peter Friedman is an American stage, film, and television actor.
Benj Pasek is an American theater and television composer and lyricist best known for his works The Greatest Showman, La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, all of which he co-wrote with his songwriting partner, Justin Paul.
Christopher Gattelli is an American choreographer, performer and theatre director.
Daryl Robert Wein is an American artist, filmmaker, producer and actor.
Dogfight is a musical with music and lyrics by Pasek & Paul and a book by Peter Duchan. It is an adaptation of Nancy Savoca's 1991 film Dogfight. The musical premiered Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in 2012, and in August 2014, the musical had its European premiere at the Southwark Playhouse in London.
Lindsay Michelle Mendez is an American actress and singer, best known for her work in American musical theatre.
Sam Gold is an American theater director and actor. He has directed both musicals and plays, on Broadway and Off-Broadway. He won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Fun Home.
The Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play is an award presented annually at the Lucille Lortel Awards to honor an actress for excellence in a leading role in an Off-Broadway production. The categories were split into Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical in 2014.
Rob Rokicki is an American composer, lyricist, and musician. He is best known for writing the music and lyrics to the Broadway musical The Lightning Thief.