Leonard Bernstein was born on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He took piano lessons as a boy and attended the Garrison and Boston Latin Schools. At Harvard University, he studied with Walter Piston, Edward Burlingame-Hill, and A. Tillman Merritt, among others. Before graduating in 1939, he made an unofficial conducting debut with his own incidental music to "The Birds," and directed and performed in Marc Blitzstein's "The Cradle Will Rock." Then at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he studied piano with Isabella Vengerova, conducting with Fritz Reiner, and orchestration with Randall Thompson.
In 1940, he studied at the ... read more
Betty Comden, born in Brooklyn in 1917, was an American lyricist, screenwriter, and actress. She is best known for her work with Adolph Green, with whom she collaborated on numerous musicals and films.
Comden and Green met in 1938 while both were studying at New York University, and began writing together shortly thereafter. Their first Broadway credit was for On the Town, a musical about three sailors on a 24-hour leave in New York City. The show premiered in 1944 and was a huge success, cementing Comden and Green's place in the world of musical theater.
Comden and Green went on to ... read more
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who was born on December 2, 1914, in the Bronx, New York. He was the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. Green's father was a successful businessman, and his mother was a homemaker. Green attended New York University, where he studied English and drama.
Green began his career in show business as a performer in the late 1930s. He appeared in several Broadway productions, including "The New Yorkers" and "Two for the Show." However, it was his work as a lyricist that would make him famous.
Green's first major success as a lyricist came in ... read more
Broadway: Venus in Fur, Time Stands Still, A View from the Bridge, The Royal Family, The Color Purple, Doubt, Chicago, Dinner at Eight, Proof, Rabbit Hole, Last Night of Ballyhoo, A Delicate Balance, The Heiress, The Most Happy Fella, The Sisters Rosensweig, Burn This, Penn & Teller, Ain't Misbehavin', Talley's Folly, Crimes of the Heart, Morning's at Seven, among others.
Off-Broadway: Other Desert Cities, The Substance of Fire, A Life in the Theatre. Thirty-six seasons with MTC, Lincoln Center, Circle Rep, City Center Encores! Tony, Obie, DD, OCC awards; Theatre Hall of Fame.
Graduate of Brown and Yale School of ... read more
Leonard Bernstein was born on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He took piano lessons as a boy and attended the Garrison and Boston Latin Schools. At Harvard University, he studied with Walter Piston, Edward Burlingame-Hill, and A. Tillman Merritt, among others. Before graduating in 1939, he made an unofficial conducting debut with his own incidental music to "The Birds," and directed and performed in Marc Blitzstein's "The Cradle Will Rock." Then at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he studied piano with Isabella Vengerova, conducting with Fritz Reiner, and orchestration with Randall Thompson.
In 1940, he studied at the ... read more
Jay Binder has cast over 70 Broadway productions, including the Tony Award winning productions of The Lion King, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Dames At Sea, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Gypsy, The King and I, Lost in Yonkers and Jerome Robbins’ Broadway. In addition, he was fortunate enough to cast every Neil Simon play from 1990 through 2009. Mr. Binder was one of the founders and continues to be a driving force behind the highly-acclaimed Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert series at City Center in New York City. His work casting this series led ... read more
WARREN CARLYLE is a Tony Award winning Director/Choreographer: Most recently choreographed the Tony Award winning revival of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler at The Shubert Theater. Directed and choreographed the Tony nominated Broadway musical After Midnight at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, Chaplin at the Barrymore Theater, Hugh Jackman: Back On Broadway at the Broadhurst Theater, the critically acclaimed, Tony nominated revival of Finian's Rainbow at the St James Theater and A Tale of Two Cities at the Al Hirschfeld Theater; Choreographed She Loves Me (Studio 54), On The 20th Century (American Airlines Theater), The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, (Studio 54), ... read more
David Ives is probably best known for his evenings of one-act comedies called All in the Timing and Time Flies. All in the Timing won the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award, ran for two years Off-Broadway, and in the 1995-96 season was the most performed play in the country after Shakespeare productions. His full-length plays include The School For Lies (adapted from Moliere's The Misanthrope and a major hit at New York's Classic Stage Company last spring); The Heir Apparent (an adaptation of J-F Regnard's comedy that was an audience and critical hit at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, ... read more
NY Theater includes: The Normal Heart, Anything Goes (Tony® nomination), Glass Menagerie (Lortel nomination), Lend Me a Tenor (Hewes Award, Tony® & Outer Critics nominations), Thoroughly Modern Millie, Blithe Spirit (Tony® nomination), Kiss Me, Kate (Tony Award® winner), Pajama Game (Tony® nomination), Wild Party, Golden Child, Kimberly Akimbo, The Life. Opera: Iphigénie en Tauride (Metropolitan Opera), The Bartered Bride (Juilliard), Tristan & Isolde, Adriana Mater (Paris Opera/Bastille), L'amour de Loin (Salzburg, Paris/Chatelet, Santa Fe, Helsinki), Iolanta, Perséphone (Teatro Madrid); works throughout U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan. Dance: Mark Morris Dance Group, SF Ballet, Boston Ballet, Arizona Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet. ... read more
Broadway theatre credits include: Gettin’ the Band Back Together (Belasco Theatre); On The Town (Lyric Theatre - Tony Nomination); Penn & Teller on Broadway (Marquis Theatre); A Christmas Story (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre); The Wedding Singer; Urinetown (Tony and Outer Critics Circle Awards); A Thousand Clowns and Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party.
Off-Broadway theatre credits include: Jerry Springer – The Opera (New Group); Lives of the Saints (Primary Stages); The Heir Apparent (SDCF Calloway Award – Classic Stage Company); All in the Timing (Primary Stages – Obie Award); Carousel (New York Philharmonic) and The Toxic Avenger, among many others.
Regional theatre credits include: Because ... read more
JEROME ROBBINS (born 11 October 1918 in New York City) was the younger of two children of Harry Rabinowitz, who emigrated to America from Poland in 1904, and his wife Lena Rips. Rabinowitz was at first a shopkeeper with a delicatessen on the Upper East Side of Manhattan; in the 1920’s he moved the family to Jersey City and then to Weehawken, New Jersey, where he and a brother-in-law established the Comfort Corset Company. Young Jerome, who showed an early aptitude for music, dancing, and theatrics, attended schools in Weehawken and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1935. Intending ... read more
