6th Annual Festival of New Musicals

2010 Fred Ebb Award, two Richard Rodgers Awards and Drama Desk Award nominee. Off-Broadway: THE EVOLUTION OF MANN (with collaborator Dan Elish @ The Cell Theatre); NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY (Hudson Guild Theatre and York Theatre Company, nearly 200 productions worldwide); THE GIG (MTC Stage 2, NAMT Festival 1994, five NYMF Awards); THE BIG TIME (book by Douglas Carter Beane, Drama Dept. workshop, NYMF 2005, 2020 McCarter Theatre concert starring Santino Fontana, Debbie Gravitte, Will Swenson, Laura Osnes); BOOZY (The Culture Project, directed by Alex Timbers); CHILDREN’S LETTERS TO GOD (Lamb’s Theatre). Doug also penned scores for THE OPPOSITE OF SEX (Williamstown Theatre Festival), GLIMMERGLASS (Goodspeed, 2000 NAMT Festival). With collaborator Cheryl Davis: DON’T STAY SAFE (Prospect Theater Company), BRIDGES (Richard Rodgers Finalist, Ignite Series@Times Center; Berkeley Playhouse) and BARNSTORMER (Jonathan Larson Grant for Lark Theatre; 2008 NAMT Festival). Member of The Dramatist Guild and ASCAP. Website: douglasjcohen.com

Stephen Cole is an award-winning writer whose 25 year career in the theatre had taken him and his musicals from New York City to London to the Middle East and Australia. His off-Broadway musical AFTER THE FAIR (music by Matthew Ward; winner of 5 Dallas Theatre Awards for it’s world premiere) was nominated for the Outer Critic’s Circle Award for Best Musical and was subsequently produced in London to great acclaim. The original cast CD featuring Tony winner Michele Pawk won several awards. A 20th Anniversary concert was presented to great acclaim. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (music by Claibe Richardson) won the prestigious Edward Kleban Award for Stephen and was produced in San Francisco where it was nominated for several Bay Area Theatre Awards. The musical has subsequently been produced in NYC as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2006 and was produced at Lyric Stage in Dallas with a full orchestra. The award winning concept CD features Ron Raines and Dorothy Loudon and was the recipient of a German music critics Award. SATURDAY NIGHT AT GROSSINGER’S (music by Claibe Richardson) has had successful runs in Dallas (Starring Gavin MacLeod), LA and Florida. Broadway legend Chita Rivera toured in his show CASPER (music by Matthew Ward) This past fall CASPER was reborn as CASPER-THE FRIENDLY MUSICAL and played to rave reviews at Cincinnati Children’s Theatre. Hal Linden and Dee Hoty starred in the world premiere of his musical adaptation of DODSWORTH (music by Jeffrey Saver). Stephen has been represented off Broadway with the hilarious PIANO BAR at the Triad. In 2005 Stephen and composer David Krane were commissioned to write the first American musical to premiere in the Middle East and the result was ASPIRE, which was produced in Qatar. Their amazing and hilarious cross-cultural experiences resulted in yet another musical about the creation of the show entitled THE ROAD TO QATAR! which was produced to rave reviews at the Lyric Stage, had a successful run Off-Broadway, has been recorded by Jay Records and played at the Edinburgh International Festival garnering a Best Musical nomination. It is licensed by Josef Weinberger in London. Krane and Cole also wrote a short movie musical entitled THE WHEEL GOES ROUND that was accepted and shown at five International Film Festivals including The Big Apple Film Festival in NYC. Saver and Cole’s new musical TIME AFTER TIME had its world premiere in Feb. 2010 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse under the direction of Gabriel Barre. Other produced shows include MERLIN’S APPRENTICE and ROCK ODYSSEY, which had 10 seasons of productions at the Adrienne Arscht Center Miami. With David Evans, Stephen has written MERMAN’S APPRENTICE, which was a smash hit at Birdland in NYC and has a cast album on Jay Records, as well as playing in Autumn of 2019 to rave reviews in Sonoma and winning the SF Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Score. Stephen has five published books (one under option as a feature film), including THAT BOOK ABOUT THAT GIRL and I COULD HAVE SUNG ALL NIGHT, the Marni Nixon story (currently in development as a feature film), NOEL COWARD and Charles Strouse’s memoir PUT ON A HAPPY FACE. Stephen has penned ten award winning short stories and several articles published and translated under the banner of the Vienna Jewish Museum, where has also lectured. His first novel is, MARY, ETHEL…AND MIKEY WHO?, a time travel/showbiz/coming of age that takes a nerdy 30 year old threw Ethel Merman’s closet back in time and forward again. Stephen has just completed a new novel entitled 2020 and is working on a memoir of his incredible experience in the Middle East, THE ROAD TO QATAR!

Stephen has created and executive produced a new awards winning web-series entitled CONEY ISLAND SURPRISE starring Anita Gillette.

Stephen has written continuity, narration, and special material for fifteen different Drama League Shows including all star tributes to Kander and Ebb, Liza Minnelli, Chita Rivera, , Liz Smith, Peter Stone, Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Kristin Chenoweth, Audra McDonald and Neil Patrick Harris. Some of the stars Stephen has written material for include Marlo Thomas, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, Donna Murphy, Christine Baranski, Hal Linden, Chita Rivera, Gavin MacLeod, Dee Hoty, Christine Ebersole, Keith Carradine, JoAnne Worley, Lauren Bacall, Matthew Broderick, Michael Rupert, Joel Grey and many others. Stephen is the recipient of a Gilman-Gonzales Falla Commendation for musical theatre.

Cheryl Coons is the Chicago Regional Representative for the Dramatists Guild. She has written lyrics and/or book for more than a dozen original musicals, including River’s End (ASCAP Foundation Harold Arlen Musical Theatre Award, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, Theatre for the American Musical Award), At Wit’s End (Carbonell Award), Sylvia’s Real Good Advice (Joseph Jefferson Award), Female Problems  (After Dark Award), and Phantom of the Country Opera, published by Music Theater International. Her work has appeared on the stages of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Northlight Theatre, the Marriott Theatre at Lincolnshire, Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace, Florida Stage and Marin Theatre Company. Her original musicals have been developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Music Theater Conference, and she is a two-time participant in the ASCAP workshops in Los Angeles and Chicago. She has had two projects featured in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s annual Festival of New Musicals, and her musical River’s End was a featured selection at the New York Music Theatre Festival, where it was honored with the Theatre for the American Musical Award. Cheryl appeared at Carnegie Hall, singing her original songs in an evening sponsored by ASCAP and hosted by Michael Feinstein. She has served as an animateur for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Chicago Voices program, a mentor/instructor for the Writing the Musical Class at Northwestern University, and an instructor of musical theatre writing at Columbia College Chicago. She designed and taught a curriculum for musical theatre writing for Chicago Dramatists, where she has been a Resident Playwright since 2008, as well as a series of musical theatre writing and appreciation classes and for Porchlight Music Theatre. She is a Program Manager and Teaching Artist with Storycatchers Theatre, working with incarcerated youth at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center.

Ted Kociolek is a noted composer, librettist, music director, vocal coach, educator and pianist. As a writer, he is represented by THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, ABYSSINIA, JOLSON: A NEW VAUDEVILLE and has contributed songs to Nicky Silver’s revue, SHRINKS! Other composing credits include dance and incidental music, cabaret, industrials and special material. As a vocal coach, he has served on the faculties of NYU and Long Island University and maintains a private practice in New York City. Ted is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild. www.tedkociolek.com

Matthew wrote the score for THE LADY IN PENTHOUSE B which was presented twice in 2016 at Urban Stages Theatre starring Klea Blackhurst, in a staged reading at the York Theatre with Tovah Feldshuh and Liz Callaway, and as part of the “New to New York series” starring Nancy Dussault. He is the composer of AFTER THE FAIR, book and lyrics by Kleban Award recipient Steven Cole. Premiering at Dallas Lyric Stage, AFTER THE FAIR has been produced in New York, London, Brighton, Chicago and Seattle. With Mr. Cole he wrote CASPER starring Chita Rivera and l MERLIN’S APPRENTICE. For the NYMTF production of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (book and lyrics Cole) Mr. Ward created musical continuity based on notes left by the late composer Claibe Richards. He composed underscore for an evening of classical scenes (Lear, Medea, Hamlet…) MASQUES OF MELANCOLIA, starring Ann Jackson, Eli Wallach and Richard Chamberlain.