Jonathan Larson
Jonathan Larson was an American Tony Award-winning composer and playwright who lived in New York City and authored musicals, including Rent and Tick, Tick... BOOM!. These musicals tackle serious issues such as multiculturalism, addiction, homophobia, and the AIDS epidemic. His artistic vision and goal was to fuse Generation X and the MTV Generation with the world of musical theatre in his work. This mission was accomplished by his magnum opus, Rent, for which he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won four Tony Awards.
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William Finn
William Alan Finn was an American composer and lyricist. He was best known for his musicals, which include Falsettos, for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical, A New Brain (1998), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).
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Dawn Chalker
I live in Northern Michigan and enjoy hiking and kayaking as often as I can. I love to travel and have visited all fifty states as well as places outside of the U.S. As a Certified Naturalist through Northwestern Michigan College, I include nature in all of the books I write. My books cover several genres, because I like to explore different ways of writing.
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Hugh Wheeler
Hugh Callingham Wheeler was a British novelist, screenwriter, librettist, poet and translator. He resided in the United States from 1934 until his death and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. He had attended London University.
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Under the noms de plume Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge, Wheeler was the author or co-author of many mystery novels and short stories. In 1963, his 1961 collection, The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. He won the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical in 1973 and 1974 for his books for the musicals A Little Night Music and Candide, and won both again in 1979 for his book for Sweeney Todd. -
John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell is a Golden Globe-nominated American writer, actor, and director. He is best known for his motion pictures Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus. He is currently in production for Rabbit Hole starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.
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Jason Robert Brown
Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner. He now divides his time between Los Angeles, California and Spoleto, Italy. Jason is a proud member of the Dramatist's Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 & 47.
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Lynn Ahrens
Lynn Ahrens has enjoyed a musical partnership with composer Stephen Flaherty since 1983. They are considered the foremost theatrical songwriting team of their generation.
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For Broadway’s Ragtime, Ahrens and Flaherty won the Tony Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. They wrote the score for Twentieth Century Fox’s animated feature film Anastasia, earning two Academy Award nominations and two Golden Globe nominations, and they also adapted the hit musical Anastasia for Broadway. Their many stage credits include Broadway’s Once On This Island and its recent revival (2018 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical); Seussical (one of the most produced shows in America); Rocky; Ragtime (Broadway premiere and 2009 revival); Chita Rivera -
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, socialist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama. Over the course of his life he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his plays address prevailing social problems, but each also includes a vein of comedy that makes their stark themes more palatable. In these works Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.
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An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Societ -
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.
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As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).
Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and anti -
Edward Albee
Noted American playwright Edward Franklin Albee explored the darker aspects of human relationships in plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) and Three Tall Women (1991), which won his third Pulitzer Prize.
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People know Edward Franklin Albee III for works, including The Zoo Story , The Sandbox and The American Dream .
He well crafted his works, considered often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflected a mastery and Americanization of the theater of the absurd, which found its peak in European playwrights, such as Jean Genet, Samuel Barclay Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel credits daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue of Albee with -
Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner is an award-winning American playwright most famous for his play Angels in America, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is also co-author, along with Eric Roth, of the screenplay of the 2005 film Munich, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and earned Kushner (along with Roth) an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Langston Hughes
Through poetry, prose, and drama, American writer James Langston Hughes made important contributions to the Harlem renaissance; his best-known works include Weary Blues (1926) and The Ways of White Folks (1934).
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People best know this social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist James Mercer Langston Hughes, one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry, for his famous written work about the period, when "Harlem was in vogue."
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John Gay
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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John Gay was an English poet and dramatist. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728), set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names. -
Annie Ernaux
The author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, Annie Ernaux is considered by many to be France’s most important writer. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has also won the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place and the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work. More recently she received the International Strega Prize, the Prix Formentor, the French-American Translation Prize, and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for The Years, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019. Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, and A Man's Place.
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William Finn
William Alan Finn was an American composer and lyricist. He was best known for his musicals, which include Falsettos, for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical, A New Brain (1998), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).
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John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanley was born in The Bronx, New York City, to a telephone operator mother and a meat-packer father. He is a graduate of New York University, and is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre.
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For his script for the 1987 film, Moonstruck, Shanley won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
In 1990, Shanley directed his script of Joe Versus the Volcano. Shanley also wrote two songs for the movie: "Marooned Without You" and "The Cowboy Song."
In 2004 Shanley was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame.
In 2005, Shanley's play Doubt: A Parable was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Drama Desk Award and Tony Award for Best Play. Dou -
Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl (born 1974) is an American playwright. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.
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Originally, she intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001), she was persuaded to switch to playwriting. Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes. Her roots in poetry can be seen in the way she uses language in her plays. She also did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford.
In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright -
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim was an American musical and film composer and lyricist, winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (seven, more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. He has been described as the Titan of the American Musical.
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His most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins, as well as the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. He was president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981. -
David Auburn
David Auburn is an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre director. He is best known for his 2000 play Proof, which won the 2001 Tony Award for Best Play and Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
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Anthony Rapp
Anthony (Deane) Rapp is an American stage and film actor and singer.
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Rapp first performed on Broadway in 1981 in the flop The Little Prince and the Aviator, a musical based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel The Little Prince. The show closed during previews. He also appeared in the 1987 movie Adventures in Babysitting, which was directed by Chris Columbus. Columbus would later direct Rapp in the film version of Rent.
Rapp has gone on to appear in several movies and Broadway shows, most notably as intellectuals. His notable work includes films Dazed and Confused, A Beautiful Mind, School Ties, Road Trip, the stage and film versions of Six Degrees of Separation, and An American Family.
Rapp is probably best known for playing Mark Cohen in the -
Trey Parker
Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III is an American animator, screenwriter, film director, voice actor, actor and Academy Award nominated lyricist. He is most noted as one of the creators of the animated series South Park along with Matt Stone.
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Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major Norwegian playwright largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama. He is often referred to as the "father of modern drama." Ibsen is held to be the greatest of Norwegian authors and one of the most important playwrights of all time, celebrated as a national symbol by Norwegians.
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His plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when Victorian values of family life and propriety largely held sway in Europe and any challenge to them was considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many facades, possessing a revelatory nature that was disquieting to many contemporaries.
Ibsen largely founded the modern stage by introducing a critical eye and free inquir -
Kyle Keyes
Born To Write:
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Older Americans often come from whistle stop towns painted by Norman Rockwell. Kyle Keyes grew up in Clayton, a South Jersey borough first founded as Fislerville. Clayton had a small urban district with street lights, but no indoor plumbing. Farmland and outhouses were a sign of the times.
Clayton was so small, that Keye's aunt doubled as his Sixth Grade school teacher, who once said that Kyle lived with his nose between the bookends. She must have known something.
Keyes went to Temple Tech for concrete and steel design in 1956 and 1957. He never became an engineer, but still has a red, tinker toy motor and his World War II, Erector Set.
The early Sixties found Kyle in the U.S. Army where his top sergeant would daily bark, "You -
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda is a composer, lyricist, writer, rapper, and actor. He is an award-winning artist (including: Tony, Grammy, Pulitzer Prize, and MacArthur "Genius" Award) known for In the Heights (composer-lyricist, actor) and Hamilton (book, music and lyrics, in addition to playing the title role).
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Mark Ellis
Former barrister and businessman from Wales. Author of 6 books in the Frank Merlin WW2 detective series:
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Princes Gate (1) now retitled The Embassy Murders
Stalin’s Gold (2) now retitled In The Shadows Of The Blitz
Merlin At War (3) now retitled The French Spy
A Death In Mayfair (4)
Dead In The Water (5)
Death Of An Officer (6)
Ellis has also written a short history, Boom Time: True Crime in WW2 London
Merlin 3 was nominated for a CWA Dagger
‘Must-read for murder mystery lovers’ Daily Mail
‘Masterly….compelling’ Bestselling historian Andrew Roberts'
‘Unputdownable’ WW2 historian Robert Lyman
‘Dead In The Water is to my shame the first Mark Ellis book I’ve read. If the others evoke a vanished London so impressively, are graced with such complex plots an -
Margarita Barresi
A native Puerto Rican, Margarita Barresi writes historical fiction and essays about growing up on the island. She studied public relations at Boston University and had a successful 25-year career in marketing communications. Her work has been published in several journals and anthologies, including Acentos Review, The Drowning Gull, and (mac)ro(mic).
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Margarita lives in the suburbs north of Boston with her husband and two post-Maria rescue cats from Puerto Rico. -
Dawn Chalker
I live in Northern Michigan and enjoy hiking and kayaking as often as I can. I love to travel and have visited all fifty states as well as places outside of the U.S. As a Certified Naturalist through Northwestern Michigan College, I include nature in all of the books I write. My books cover several genres, because I like to explore different ways of writing.
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Dean Mafako
Dean Mafako, M.D. is an author, physician, and clinical professor of pediatrics with over 15 years of clinical and research experience. He is passionate about medicine and helping others, but also enjoys writing fiction and nonfiction novels. He writes to help others who may be dealing with difficult and traumatic life experiences to show them how their struggles can lead to personal growth and spiritual healing.
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Harold Phifer
Harold Phifer was born in the rebellious South of Columbus, Mississippi. As a kid, he worked the streets, hustled the neighbors, and bus tables at bars he didn’t belong in. After walking the stage at Caldwell High School, he went own to graduate from Mississippi State and Jackson State Universities respectively. Then he started his career as an Air Traffic Controller in Memphis, Tennessee. However, he was never at peace with himself. So, after 23 years, he left the United States and took a job as an International Contractor. Working with soldiers gave him a sense of duty and purpose. However, it all came with a price and experiences he wasn’t prepared for. As luck would have it, he got expelled out of Iraq due to the U S Military Drawdown i
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Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Schwartz was born in New York City on March 6, 1948. He studied piano and composition at the Juilliard School of Music while in high school and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a B.F.A. in Drama. Upon coming back to live in New York City, he went to work as a producer for RCA Records, but shortly thereafter began to work in the Broadway theatre.
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His first major credit was the title song for the play BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE; the song was eventually used in the movie version as well.
In 1971, he wrote the music and new lyrics for GODSPELL, for which he won several awards including two Grammys. This was followed by the English texts, in collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, for Bernstein's MASS, which opened the Kenne -
Trey Parker
Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III is an American animator, screenwriter, film director, voice actor, actor and Academy Award nominated lyricist. He is most noted as one of the creators of the animated series South Park along with Matt Stone.
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Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda is a composer, lyricist, writer, rapper, and actor. He is an award-winning artist (including: Tony, Grammy, Pulitzer Prize, and MacArthur "Genius" Award) known for In the Heights (composer-lyricist, actor) and Hamilton (book, music and lyrics, in addition to playing the title role).
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Anthony Rapp
Anthony (Deane) Rapp is an American stage and film actor and singer.
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Rapp first performed on Broadway in 1981 in the flop The Little Prince and the Aviator, a musical based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel The Little Prince. The show closed during previews. He also appeared in the 1987 movie Adventures in Babysitting, which was directed by Chris Columbus. Columbus would later direct Rapp in the film version of Rent.
Rapp has gone on to appear in several movies and Broadway shows, most notably as intellectuals. His notable work includes films Dazed and Confused, A Beautiful Mind, School Ties, Road Trip, the stage and film versions of Six Degrees of Separation, and An American Family.
Rapp is probably best known for playing Mark Cohen in the -
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American writer, theatrical producer, and (usually uncredited) theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song", and much of his work is part of the unofficial Great American Songbook. He co-wrote 850 songs. Hammerstein was the lyricist and playwright in his partnerships; his collaborators wrote the music. Hammerstein collaborated with composers including Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg, but his most famous collaboration was with Richard Rodgers.
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