Stephen Keeling

Last updated

Stephen Keeling is a British composer and musician who works predominantly in musical theatre.

Contents

Biographical details

Born in 1966 in Staffordshire, England, he trained at Goldsmiths College, University of London, gaining an honours degree in music. In 1990 he was chosen by Sir Cameron Mackintosh to be one of 12 writers to study with Stephen Sondheim during the latter's year-long tenure at Oxford University as the Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre. [1]

Notable works

During his time with Stephen Sondheim at Oxford, he composed the music for Maddie (book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna and Steven Dexter), which was subsequently workshopped at the Royal National Theatre Studio before receiving its first full production at the Salisbury Playhouse. [2] The production then transferred to the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue in London's West End in 1997, produced by Kenny Wax Productions. [3] In 2023, Maddie was performed in New York, winning Best Score at the New York Theater Festival awards. [4]

He was the co-composer, along with Laurence O'Keefe, for La Cava (book by Dana Broccoli, lyrics by John Claflin), which transferred from the Churchill Theatre, Bromley to the Victoria Palace Theatre, London in 2000 and then later transferred to the Piccadilly Theatre in the West End of London.

He composed the music for a musical adaptation of Heidi (book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna), which combines the story of Johanna Spyri’s first Heidi novel with the life of the author. Heidi opened in Switzerland in 2005. [5]

In 2007 a sequel, Heidi and Johanna (intertwining the second Heidi novel with the final years of Johanna Spyri’s life and ending with her death), was nominated for a Prix Walo award. [6]

Stephen Keeling has also composed the music for My Father’s Son, a musical set in nineteenth century Sheffield and based loosely on Shakespeare's Hamlet (book and lyrics by Stephen Clark, directed by Steven Dexter at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield and the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler’s Wells). For children he has composed The Last Wave, a musical about the Children's Crusade (book and lyrics by Peter Spafford) and written the music for a musical adaptation of The Amazing Mr. Blunden (book and lyrics by Edward Hardy). [7]

He wrote the music for a sequel to Peter Pan, called The Return of Peter Pan (book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna), which premiered at the Theater Regensburg, Germany, in November 2023. [8]

Other

Keeling was a founding member of the Mercury Workshop, which merged with the New Musicals Alliance to become MMD, a UK-based organisation developing new musical theatre.

In 1997, he appeared, together with Shaun McKenna, on BBC Radio 2's In Company With Sondheim in an edition devoted to Maddie. [9]

Related Research Articles

<i>Follies</i> 1971 musical by Stephen Sondheim

Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Sondheim</span> American composer and lyricist (1930–2021)

Stephen Joshua Sondheim was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. With his frequent collaborations with Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics were tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life.

<i>Saturday Night</i> (musical)

Saturday Night is a 1955 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein, based on their play, Front Porch in Flatbush.

<i>Heidi</i> Swiss novel by Johanna Spyri

Heidi is a work of children's fiction published between 1880 and 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as Heidi: Her Years of Wandering and Learning and Heidi: How She Used What She Learned. It is a novel about the events in the life of a 5-year-old girl in her paternal grandfather's care in the Swiss Alps. It was written as a book "for children and those who love children".

<i>Do I Hear a Waltz?</i> Musical

Do I Hear a Waltz? is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Richard Rodgers, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was adapted from Laurents' 1952 play The Time of the Cuckoo, which was the basis for the 1955 film Summertime starring Katharine Hepburn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Lapine</span> American stage director and librettist

James Elliot Lapine is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.

Charles Hart is an English lyricist, librettist and songwriter best known for his work on The Phantom of the Opera as well as a number of other musicals and operas for both stage and television.

<i>Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street</i> 1979 musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. It is based on the 1970 play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The character of Sweeney Todd first appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls.

Graham John Bickley is an English actor and singer. He is best known for playing the role of Joey Boswell in Bread from 1989 until 1991, taking over from Peter Howitt, who played him from 1986 until 1989.

Wally Harper was an American musical director, composer, conductor, dance arranger, and musical supervisor for many Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. For three decades from the mid-1970s, he worked with Barbara Cook as pianist, music director and arranger.

<i>La Cava</i> (musical)

La Cava is a musical with a book by Dana Broccoli, lyrics by John Claflin and Laurence O'Keefe, additional lyrics by Shaun McKenna and music by O'Keefe and Stephen Keeling.

<i>Side by Side by Sondheim</i> Musical revue featuring the songs of Stephen Sondheim

Side by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.

Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines, and Anecdotes is a memoir by American musical theatre composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. It was published on October 29, 2010 by Alfred A. Knopf, and is 444 pages. The second volume, Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Wafflings, Diversions and Anecdotes, was published on November 22, 2011, by Alfred A. Knopf and is 480 pages. These two volumes were sold together in late 2011 as a box set titled Hat Box, The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. Together, these books include the collected lyrics from Sondheim's entire musical theater, film, and television careers, as well as details about the process of making these works and Sondheim's opinion and critique of his own work.

Shaun Patrick McKenna is an English dramatist, lyricist and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johanna (character)</span> Fictional character

Johanna is a fictional character appearing in the story of Sweeney Todd. In the original version of the tale, the penny dreadful The String of Pearls (1846–7), her name is Johanna Oakley and she is no relation of Todd. In the popular musical adaptation by Stephen Sondheim, inspired by Christopher Bond's play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1973), she is the daughter of Benjamin Barker and his wife, Lucy. In this version she is the ward of Judge Turpin, the man who falsely convicted her father and raped her mother.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Dexter</span> South African theatre director and writer

Steven Dexter is a theatre director and writer.

<i>Stephen Ward</i> (musical) 2013 British musical

Stephen Ward is a musical with a book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The musical is based on the 1963 Profumo affair involving the War Minister John Profumo and the socialite Stephen Ward who introduced Profumo to his mistress Christine Keeler, who was also involved with a Russian spy. The musical's world premiere was in London's West End at the Aldwych Theatre in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercury Musical Developments</span>

Mercury Musical Developments (MMD) is the UK's largest membership organisation dedicated to developing new musical theatre writing, based in the United Kingdom dedicated to developing new writing in musical theatre. Founded in 1992 as the Mercury Workshop, it took on its present name when it merged in 1999 with the New Musicals Alliance. It now has over 560 members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Youth Music Theatre</span>

British Youth Music Theatre (BYMT), formerly Youth Music Theatre UK, is a UK-based national performing arts organisation founded in December 2003. BYMT provides music theatre training to young people aged 11–21 and a stepping stone to drama school or conservatoire. Members can join either through auditions in January and February onto productions or, without audition, onto summer camps. Most of its productions and summer camps are residential and situated around the UK with productions taking place in both regional and London theatres.

Richy Hughes is an English musical theatre lyricist and theatre maker from Thurrock, England.

References

  1. ↑ "Sondheim Will Teach at Oxford".
  2. ↑ Spencer, Charles (21 September 1996). "The show we've been waiting for". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 24 February 2011.
  3. ↑ "Kenny Wax: Musicals". KennyWax.com. Archived from the original on 16 July 2010.
  4. ↑ https://newyorktheaterfestival.com/winterfest-festivals/winners-winterfest/winners-nominees-2023-winterfest/
  5. ↑ Connolly, Kate (23 July 2005). "A blast of fresh air as Heidi returns to the mountains". The Telegraph.
  6. ↑ "The Entertainer (magazine)" (PDF). PrixWalo.ch.
  7. ↑ "Stephen Keeling". United Agents.
  8. ↑ https://www.theaterregensburg.de/produktionen/die-rueckkehr-von-peter-pan.html
  9. ↑ "Sondheim Guide: Radio and Television".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.