David Javerbaum, the head writer and supervising producer of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, has been chosen as the recipient of the 15th Annual Kleban Award as the most promising musical theater lyricist in American musical theater. The award is presented by the Kleban Foundation, as administered by the New Dramatists Organization, and will provide a prize of $100,000 payable over two years.
Javerbaum will be honored at a ceremony on June 20 at 6:00 PM at BMI, 320 West 57th Street, and members of the press are invited to attend. Javerbaum's current theater projects include writing the lyrics for next year's Broadway adaptation of the John Waters film Cry-Baby. "David Javerbaum's lyrics are smart, with a great sense of humor that comes from not only a wonderful talent but a vast knowledge of every kind of weird sub-culture. I'm thrilled his cracked taste is going to be a big part of the upcoming Broadway musical based on my film," Waters noted.Javerbaum, 33, has won four Emmys, an additional Emmy nomination, two Peabody Awards, and Television Critics Awards for Best Comedy and Best News Show for his work as writer and (since 2003) head Writer and supervising producer of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He is one of the primary authors of that show's 2004 textbook parody America (The Book), which spent fifteen weeks at #1 on The New York Times Bestseller List and was named Publishers' Weekly's Book of the Year; the audiobook won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. He has also been Emmy-nominated for his work as a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman. He spent three years writing for the satirical newspaper and website The Onion, conceiving its 1999 New York Times #1 bestseller Our Dumb Century and contributing numerous articles to it and two other Onion books.
His work in musical theater, apart from the upcoming Cry-Baby, includes writing the lyrics and co-writing the book for Suburb, which ran Off-Broadway in 2001 and was nominated as Best Off-Broadway Musical by the Outer Critics Circle, the Lucille Lortel Awards, and the Drama League (for which it was nominated as Best Musical, Broadway or Off-). Prior to attending NYU, David graduated from Harvard University in 1993, where he wrote for the humor magazine The Harvard Lampoon and co-wrote two of that school's Hasty Pudding musicals.The Kleban Foundation was established in 1988 under the will of Edward L. Kleban, best known as the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-award winning lyricist for the musical A Chorus Line. In 2001, Kleban's life provided the basis for the musical A Class Act. New Dramatists is the country's premiere center for the support and development of playwrights. It was founded in 1948 by Michaela O'Harra in association with Howard Lindsay, Richard Rodgers, Russel Crouse, Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, John Golden, Moss Hart, Maxwell Anderson, John Wharton, Robert E. Sherwood and Elmer Rice. "New Dramatists gives writers the tools that they need – workshop time, generous theatre and meeting space, a pool of exceptional actors and directors, writing equipment, and the creative ferment of community – to grow artistically and strengthen their commitment to theatre." For more information, visit www.newdramatists.org
