Sara Cooper is a New York-based playwright-lyricist and librettist. [1]
Cooper graduated from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where she is also currently part-time faculty. She is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild of America.
She is a recipient of the Richard Rodgers Award [2] , a Jonathan Larson Grant [3] from the American Theatre Wing, a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Theatre Artist Commission, and a Barrington Stage Company Spark Grant. She was an inaugural member of the 92Y Musical Theatre Lab Collective and was the first librettist to complete the Composers & The Voice Fellowship at American Opera Projects.
Cooper's major works as a playwright-lyricist include The Memory Show [4] (book and lyrics by Sara Cooper, music by Zach Redler), which was produced Off-Broadway by Transport Group at The Duke on 42nd Street with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and subsequently ran in London (New Bard Productions) and Seoul (Water Gate Media) and was produced regionally at Barrington Stage Company [5] and LAMB Theatre; Elevator Heart [6] (music by Amy Burgess and Julia Meinwald), which was produced by THML Theatre Company in association with Access Theater, as well as at the University of San Francisco and workshopped at New York University; and the play Things I Left On Long Island, which premiered in the New York International Fringe Festival. Cooper's work as a librettist includes Breakfast and Windows (music by Zach Redler), produced by Lowbrow Opera Collective [7] and Fault Lines (music by Gita Razaz), which was commissioned by Washington National Opera as part of the American Opera Initiative and which premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. [8]
In addition to her work as a writer, Cooper is also currently part-time faculty at New York University and Purchase College. She has also taught at Montclair State University, Guttman Community College, City College, and Lincoln Center.
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American lyricist, librettist, theatrical producer, and director in the musical theater for almost 40 years. He won eight Tony Awards and two Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Many of his songs are standard repertoire for vocalists and jazz musicians. He co-wrote 850 songs.
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.
William Alan Finn is an American composer and lyricist. He is best known for his musicals, which include Falsettos, for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Book, A New Brain (1998), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).
Bree Lowdermilk is an American musical theater composer and lyricist.
Edward "Ed" Kleban was an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. Kleban was born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1939 and graduated from New York's High School of Music & Art and Columbia University, where he attended with future playwright Terrence McNally.
Kait Kerrigan is an American playwright and musical theater lyricist and book writer.
Michael Korie is an American librettist and lyricist whose writing for musical theater and opera includes the musicals Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven, and the operas Harvey Milk and The Grapes of Wrath. His works have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and internationally. His lyrics have been nominated for the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award, and won the Outer Critics Circle Award. In 2016, Korie was awarded the Marc Blitzstein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
James Valcq is an American musical theatre composer, lyricist, and librettist, as well as an actor and arts administrator.
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.
William Landry Aronson is a contemporary American composer and writer for musical theater, whose work includes the scores for Pete the Cat, Mother, Me & the Monsters, and My Scary Girl. He also composed and co-wrote the book for the late 21st-century romance Maybe Happy Ending (2017), The Trouble with The Dog, and Bungee Jump, cited by the NY Times in 2013 as Korea’s “most popular original musical,” and winner of Best Score at the Korean Musical Awards. Current projects include Hansel & Gretl & Heidi & Günter and Wind-Up Girl.
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 creator of the blog Crazytown and member of A.S.C.A.P. Oliver's work has been heard at the Writers Guild Awards, Off-Broadway in TheatreWorksUSA's We the People, and countless showcases.
Barrington Stage Company (BSC) is a regional theatre company in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. It was co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, and former Managing Director Susan Sperber in Sheffield, Massachusetts. In 2004, BSC developed, workshopped, and premiered the hit musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Following the successful Broadway run, which nabbed two Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Featured Actor, BSC made the move to a more permanent home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Transport Group Theatre Company is a non-profit, off-Broadway theatre company in New York City that stages new works and revivals of plays and musicals, with a focus on American stories told in visually progressive way.
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.
Timothy Huang is a Taiwanese American playwright, actor, composer and lyricist. He is the creator of the award-winning one-man musical, The View from Here, the song cycle LINES, and "American Morning", aka Costs of Living, the latter of which won the 2016 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater. He is the third Asian American to win the award since its creation and the first to win as a triple threat composer/lyricist/librettist.
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.
Shaina Taub is an American singer, composer and musician.
Peter Mills is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. He won the third Fred Ebb award in 2007.
Mark Campbell is a New York-based librettist and lyricist whose operas have received both a Pulitzer Prize in Music and a GRAMMY Award. Mark began writing for the stage as a musical theatre lyricist, but turned to libretto-writing after he premiered Volpone, his first full-length opera in 2004 at Wolf Trap Opera Company.
The Richard Rodgers Award is an annual award presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was created and endowed by Richard Rodgers in 1978 for the development of new works in musical theatre. These awards provide financial support for full productions, studio productions, and staged readings of new and developing works of musical theatre, and to nurture early-career composers, lyricists and playwrights by enabling their musicals to be produced by nonprofit theatres in New York City. The winners are selected by a jury of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Richard Rodgers Awards are the Academy's only awards for which applications are accepted.