Irving Berlin's incredible songbook remains deeply engrained in the current musical landscape of the US, UK and beyond. Contemporary pop artists who have given their own stamp to his work include Lady Gaga, Bob Dylan, Gregory Porter, Rufus Wainwright, Billie Martin, Herb Alpert, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Michael Buble, Lily Frost, Sarah McLachlan and most recently Gwen Stefani on her 2017 Christmas album. His music continues to be widely featured in films, commercials and television shows. Lady Gaga sang "God Bless America" at 2017's Super Bowl Halftime Show, whilst Seth MacFarlane covered "Let's Face the Music and Dance" for animated ... read more
Betty Comden, born in Brooklyn in 1917, was an American lyricist, screenwriter, and actress. She is best known for her work with Adolph Green, with whom she collaborated on numerous musicals and films.
Comden and Green met in 1938 while both were studying at New York University, and began writing together shortly thereafter. Their first Broadway credit was for On the Town, a musical about three sailors on a 24-hour leave in New York City. The show premiered in 1944 and was a huge success, cementing Comden and Green's place in the world of musical theater.
Comden and Green went on to ... read more
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn on September 26, 1898, and began his musical training when he was 13. At 16 he quit high school to work as a "song plugger" for a music publisher, and soon he was writing songs himself. "Swanee," as introduced by Al Jolson, brought George his first real fame and led to his writing a succession of 22 musical comedies, most with his older brother, Ira. The Gershwins' shows include Lady Be Good, Oh, Kay!, Strike Up the Band, Girl Crazy, and the Pulitzer Prize winning Of Thee I Sing. From his early career George ... read more
Ira Gershwin, the first songwriter to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, was born in New York City on December 6, 1896. In 1917 The Evening Sun published his first song ("You May Throw All The Rice You Desire But Please Friends, Throw No Shoes"). Four years later Ira enjoyed his first major stage success, Two Little Girls in Blue, written with another Broadway newcomer, Vincent Youmans. In 1924 Ira and his brother, George, created the smash hit Lady Be Good and went on to continue their remarkable collaboration through a dozen major stage scores, producing such standards as "Fascinating Rhythm," ... read more
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who was born on December 2, 1914, in the Bronx, New York. He was the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. Green's father was a successful businessman, and his mother was a homemaker. Green attended New York University, where he studied English and drama.
Green began his career in show business as a performer in the late 1930s. He appeared in several Broadway productions, including "The New Yorkers" and "Two for the Show." However, it was his work as a lyricist that would make him famous.
Green's first major success as a lyricist came in ... read more
Kerr was born in Evanston, Illinois, and earned both a B.A. and M.A. from Northwestern University., after graduation from St. George H.S. also in Evanston.
He was a regular film critic for the St. George High School newspaper while a student there, and was also a critic for the Evanston News Index. He was the editor of the high school newspaper and yearbook. He taught speech and drama at The Catholic University of America.
After writing criticism for Commonweal he became a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951. When that paper folded, he then began writing theater reviews ... read more
Richard Rodgers was an American composer of 43 Broadway musicals, leaving a legacy as one of the most significant composers of 20th century American music. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. His compositions have had a significant impact on popular music.
Rodgers was the first person to win an EGOT. In addition, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, making him one of only two people to receive all five awards ... read more
With the scores of such Broadway classics as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peter Pan, Bells Are Ringing, Gypsy, and Funny Girl to his credit, composer Jule Styne ranks as one of the undisputed architects of the American musical theater.
Born in London's East End on December 31, 1905, Styne's family moved to the United States in 1912. Young Julius showed such a talent for the piano that he had performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies by age 10.
He developed his feel for popular music working with the jazz bands of 1920s Chicago, and as vocal coach to such ... read more
Jack Viertel is an American theatrical producer and writer. From 2000 to 2020, he was a producer at the Encores! series. Viertel is credited as Producer, Theatre Owner/Operator, Conception, Creative Consultant, Writer, and more. ... read more
Broadway: Venus in Fur, Time Stands Still, A View from the Bridge, The Royal Family, The Color Purple, Doubt, Chicago, Dinner at Eight, Proof, Rabbit Hole, Last Night of Ballyhoo, A Delicate Balance, The Heiress, The Most Happy Fella, The Sisters Rosensweig, Burn This, Penn & Teller, Ain't Misbehavin', Talley's Folly, Crimes of the Heart, Morning's at Seven, among others.
Off-Broadway: Other Desert Cities, The Substance of Fire, A Life in the Theatre. Thirty-six seasons with MTC, Lincoln Center, Circle Rep, City Center Encores! Tony, Obie, DD, OCC awards; Theatre Hall of Fame.
Graduate of Brown and Yale School of ... read more
Rob Berman is an Emmy and Grammy Award-winning, New York-based conductor and music director. For fifteen years he was the music director of Encores!, New York City Center’s acclaimed series of great American musicals in concert, where he conducted over thirty productions, including the recent revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, which transferred to a Broadway run and for which he received a Grammy Award as co-producer of the original cast recording.
For nine years, Rob was music director of the Kennedy Center Honors, for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction.
Other Broadway ... read more
WARREN CARLYLE is a Tony Award winning Director/Choreographer: Most recently choreographed the Tony Award winning revival of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler at The Shubert Theater. Directed and choreographed the Tony nominated Broadway musical After Midnight at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, Chaplin at the Barrymore Theater, Hugh Jackman: Back On Broadway at the Broadhurst Theater, the critically acclaimed, Tony nominated revival of Finian's Rainbow at the St James Theater and A Tale of Two Cities at the Al Hirschfeld Theater; Choreographed She Loves Me (Studio 54), On The 20th Century (American Airlines Theater), The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, (Studio 54), ... read more
William Ivey Long has over 70 Broadway design credits in addition to his work in television, film, opera and ballet. Mr. Long has won 6 Tony Awards, with 15 nominations. He was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in January 2006 and recently completed a 4-year elected term as Chairman of the American Theatre Wing. ... read more
