Theatrical Lyricist

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (b. March 22 1930) is an American musical and film composer and lyricist, winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Award (seven, more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Award, and a Pulitzer Prize. He has been described by Frank Rich in the The New York Times as "the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theatre." His most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A...

Christopher Bond (fl. 1970s) is a British playwright whose 1973 retelling of the Victorian tale Sweeney Todd formed the basis of Stephen Sondheim's musical of the same name, with book by Hugh Wheeler. He currently lives in West Cornwall. A noted fan of horror/comedy (as well as the rock band KISS), Bond has also written and directed Evil Dead: The Musical. Bond, Christopher

Chen Shi-Zheng (陈士爭) (born 1963 in Changsha, Hunan, China) is an acclaimed Chinese theatre and opera director now based in the United States. His early training in China was in traditional Chinese opera. He went to study at New York University in 1989. Chen's directorial debut film, Dark Matter, was released in 2007, starring Liu Ye and Meryl Streep. This film won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. He also directed Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's operatic stage...

Jim Steinman (born November 1, 1947 in New York City, New York) is an American record producer, composer, and lyricist responsible for several hit songs. He has also worked as an arranger, pianist, and singer. His work has included songs in the adult contemporary, rock and roll, dance/techno, pop, musical theater, and film score genres. His work includes the Meat Loaf album Bat out of Hell and Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and producing albums for Bonnie Tyler. His most successful chart...

Betty Comden and Adolph Green were the writing duo (billed as Comden and Green) who penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM during the genre's heyday. Betty Comden was born Elizabeth Cohen in NYC on May 3, 1915 (see , ) although many sources incorrectly cite 1919 as her year of birth. She is still alive (aged 91 as of 2006). Adolph Green was born on December 2, 1914 in The Bronx, New York, and died ...

Timothy Wright Mason (March 2 1940–March 5 1990) was a British Marxist historian of Nazi Germany. He was born in Birkenhead, the child of school-teachers and was educated at Birkenhead School and Oxford University. He taught at Oxford from 1971–1985 and was twice married. He helped to found the left-wing journal History Workshop Journal. Mason specialized in the social history of the Third Reich, especially that of the working-class. Mason's most famous book was his 1975 work Arbeiterklasse und...

Lorenz "Larry" Hart (May 2, 1895 - November 22, 1943) was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include, "Blue Moon", "Isn't It Romantic?", "Mountain Greenery", "The Lady Is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Where or When", "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", "Falling in Love with Love", and "My Funny Valentine". Hart was born in Harlem to Jewish immigrant parents. He attended Columbia University, where a friend introduced him to...

Jeff Marx (born September 10, 1970) is a composer and lyricist of musicals. He is best known for creating the Broadway musical Avenue Q with collaborator Robert Lopez. Together, they wrote all the show's 21 songs. Lopez and Marx both write lyrics and they both write music, and wrote the entire score together, in the same room, at the same time. Avenue Q is currently running on Broadway (now the 25th longest running musical in Broadway history), in London's West End, on a U.S. National Tour, and...

Sheldon Harnick (born April 30, 1924) is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof. Harnick began his career writing words and music to comic songs in musical revues. One of these, "The Merry Minuet", was popularized by the Kingston Trio. It is in the caustic style usually associated with Tom Lehrer and is sometimes incorrectly attributed to him. (In each case the composer of the music is given in parentheses.)

Gerome Bernard Ragni (September 11, 1935 - July 10, 1991) was an American actor, singer and songwriter, best known as the co-author of the groundbreaking 1960s rock musical Hair. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of ten children from a poor Italian family, though others say the birth took place in Canada. When he was 5 years old, he began painting crazy, beautiful pictures all over the walls of his family's house and his parents couldn't stop him. Even then, he believed he was a...

Laurence O'Keefe (Born Newcastle, England, January 2, 1965), is an English bass player and has previously played in a number of bands, most notably Jazz Butcher, Levitation and Dark Star. Since Dark Star split up, O'Keefe has toured with Sophia and Martina Topley-Bird. He is not to be confused with Laurence O'Keefe, the composer of various musicals such as Bat Boy: The Musical, La Cava, and Legally Blonde: The Musical.

Queen are an English rock band formed in 1970 in London by guitarist Brian May, lead vocalist Freddie Mercury, and drummer Roger Taylor, with bass guitarist John Deacon joining the following year. Queen rose to prominence during the 1970s and are arguably Britain's most successful band of the past three decades. The band is noted for their musical diversity, multi-layered arrangements, vocal harmonies, and incorporation of audience participation into their live performances. Their 1985 Live...

Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942 in Hawthorne, California) is an American musician best known as the lead songwriter, bassist, and singer of the American pop band The Beach Boys. Wilson was also the band's main producer, composer, and arranger. The lead vocal parts for The Beach Boys recordings were primarily sung by either Wilson, his brother Carl, or Mike Love. Early influences included The Four Freshmen and Chuck Berry, among others. Wilson admired Phil Spector, considering him both...

Jason Robert Brown (born 1970 in Ossining, New York) is an American musical theater composer and lyricist. Often cited as one of the "New School" of theatrical composers (a list that includes Michael John LaChiusa, Adam Guettel, Andrew Lippa and Jeanine Tesori, among others), Brown's music sensibility fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics. An accomplished pianist, Brown has often served as music director, conductor, orchestrator and pianist for his own productions. Brown grew up in...