6th Annual Festival of New Musicals

Douglas J. Cohen (composer/lyricist) is the recipient of two Richard Rodgers Awards (No Way to Treat a Lady, The Gig), a Jonathan Larson Grant (Barnstormer), a Drama Desk nomination (Children’s Letters to God), a Drama League nomination (Don’t Stay Safe with collaborator Cheryl L. Davis), and the Fred Ebb Award. Off-Broadway productions as include Manhattan Theatre Club, The York Theatre Company, The Cell Theatre, and reginonal productions at Williamstown, Signature Theater, Barrington Stage, and Goodspeed. The Gig, Glimmerglass, and Barnstormer were presented in NAMT’s Festival of New Musicals. A Studio Album of The Big Time (Concord Records, co-written with librettist Douglas Carter Beane) stars Santino Fontana, Debbie Gravitte, Will Swenson, Jackie Hoffman and other members from the sold-out, January 2020 McCarter Theatre concert. Doug’s first non-fiction book, How to Survive a Killer Musical, was published by Applause Books, September 1st. He is a member of ASCAP and The Dramatists Guild.

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 has written lyrics and/or book for more than a dozen original musicals, including River’s End (NAMT Festival, 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 (NAMT Festival), published by Music Theatre International. Her work has appeared on the stages of Chicago Shakespeare Theatre (Lyrics), Northlight Theatre, the Marriott Theatre at Lincolnshire, Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace, and Marin Theatre Company. Her original musicals have been developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Music Theatre Conference, and featured at the NAMT Festival, NYMF, and the ASCAP Workshop in Los Angeles. She served as an animateur for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Chicago Voices program. She serves on the National Council of the Dramatists Guild.

Michael Duff has written four musicals which have received professional productions, including At Wit’s End, which received Florida’s Carbonell Award for Best New Work. He was the recipient of Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for Musical Direction for his work on Female Problems, to which he also contributed a number of songs, sharing Chicago’s After Dark Award for the music and lyrics. He composed the score for Phantom of the Country Opera, published by Music Theater International, and Ms. Cinderella, produced at Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theater. Listed in Who’s Who of Entertainment, Mr. Duff has been musical director/conductor for over 80 different productions, including the third national tour of Les Miserables, Peter Pan with Cathy Rigby, tours of 42nd Street, Bob Fosse’s Dancin’, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof. He performed on Broadway as The City Editor in The News.

Ted Kociolek is a noted composer, librettist, vocal coach, musical director, educator and pianist. As a writer, he is represented by SCARAMOUCHE, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, ABYSSINIA (Lyric Stage-Dallas, Goodspeed Musicals/North Shore Music Theatre/Cleveland Playhouse/Arena Stage), JOLSON: A NEW VAUDEVILLE and has contributed songs to the revues SHRINKS! by Nicky Silver and CRAZY LOVE, which had successful runs nationwide. Other composing credits include dance and incidental music, cabaret, industrials and special material. Ted has been affiliated with several Broadway shows and worked extensively in regional theater as conductor, keyboardist and arranger. As a vocal coach, he has served on the faculties of NYU and Long Island University and maintains a private practice at his home in New York City. Ted is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild. www.tedkociolek.com

James Racheff has been a lyricist/bookwriter and playwright for more than thirty-five years. His shows have appeared on Broadway (Oh, Kay!), Off Broadway (Imperfect Chemistry), major regional theatres (Abyssinia, Houdini) at Goodspeed Opera House, Cleveland Play House, Arena Stage, North Shore Music Theatre, and internationally in Japan (Club Moonlight) and China (The Joker’s Game, MK–the Monkey King). His play, Feather on the Sea (Icarus and Daedelus) was presented by Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and100 Famous Views of Otzi (the Iceman) had its Equity premiere in New Jersey in 2016. He has a longtime collaborative association with composer Ted Kociolek, and in early 2020, their musical Abyssinia was presented by the Dallas Lyric Stage at the Dallas Majestic Theater. A former resident of Manhattan, he now lives on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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.