2nd Annual Festival of New Musicals

JAMES CAMPODONICO (Music and Lyrics) songs have been performed in Talent ’65 New York, Tanglewood, Goodspeed Opera House, The Triad, Roses’s Turn, The Duplex, and Don’t Tell Mama. Past musicals: “Flowers and Trees”, developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Festival, Waterford Connecticut and presented at Edward Albee’s Playwrights Unit and at the Whole Theater in Montclair, NJ; “Between The Lines” presented as staged readings by the York Theatre Company, Amas Repertory Theater, and as a full production by Luna Stage in Montclair. “Murder On Broadway”, developed at Musical Theater Works, presented at NAMT and produced for a twelve week run at the Show Boat Dinner Theater in Florida He has been a member of the Lehman Engel BMI Musical Theater Workshop since 1965 and has participated in the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop. He recently had a staged reading of “What Do Critics Know?” at The York Theatre, NYC.

Patrick Cook is the Senior Director of Musical Theatre and Jazz for BMI. He was the winner of the 2001 Ed Kleban Award for outstanding lyrics.
Among his theatre credits is his musical “Captains Courageous,” written with collaborator Frederick Freyer, which was produced at Manhattan Theatre Club and was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for best musical. In his early career, Cook was an actor appearing in several Broadway productions including “A Mother’s Kisses” with Beatrice Arthur, and the National Tour of “1776.” He was a regular on the PBS series “Feeling Good.”
Mr. Cook has been associated with the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop for more than a quarter century, both as a member of the Workshop and as its Artistic Director and moderator for the past 18 years.

Frederick Freyer (music) has collaborated exclusively on musicals with Patrick Cook since their meeting in the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in 1984 (see Pat’s bio for their work together). He has also written various other art songs, piano pieces and even an oratorio. A graduate of Harvard and a resident of lower Westchester County, Rick is the Administrator of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, where he is Co-Moderator of the First and Second Year Classes.

Bryan D. Leys provided the book and lyrics for Off-Broadway’s Hell’s Belles; Carolina Rising (2018 TRU Voices New Musicals selection; Audience Favorite Award, Barter heater Appalachian Festival); Kid Dakota; Vienna; The Forgotten Film of Dorian Gray (Michael Stewart Award winner); The White Witch of Rosehall ; Acting; and Fortune and Fate. His musicals Hoodwinked and Midsummer Nights are available through Samuel
French; Murder on Broadway is available through Miracle Or 2 Licensing. Bryan’s musical Hell’s Belles ran in March at Empire Stage, Fort Lauderdale and How to Marry a Divorced Man premiered has ran in 2018 at the Winter Park Playhouse in Orlando.

Biob Ost wrote book, music and lyrics for Finale!, winner of two national competitions and a finalist at the O’Nelll. His one act Beast appeared in the first season of Playwrights Horizons. The Necessaruy Disposal was a finalist at Elmira College and the Whirte-WIllis Playwrights Contests, the Sunset Festival of Firsts, and most recently the Maxim Mazumdar Competition at Alleyway Theater in Buffalo. Breeders was a finalist in three national competitions including TRU Voices Play Reading Series, and was 2010 winner of the New Works of Mertit Playwrighting Competition. The Body Shop received honorable mention ion the Turnip Festival, and an adaptation of The Mandragola was commissioned and performed by Westside Rep. His musical revue Everybody’s Gettin’ into the Act was produced off-Broadway and an all-star cast recording is available on the Fynsworth Alley label. 2004 OOBR Award for revue Songs Are Like Friends, 3-time MAC nominee.