Arthur Laurents was a renowned American playwright, screenwriter, and director who was born on July 14, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. He was a prominent figure in the entertainment industry for over six decades and was widely regarded as one of the most influential playwrights of his generation.
Laurents began his career in the theater as an assistant to playwrights such as Robert E. Sherwood and Moss Hart. He made his Broadway debut as a playwright in 1945 with the play "Home of the Brave," which dealt with anti-Semitism in the military. The play was a critical and commercial success and ... read more
Stephen Sondheim is widely acknowledged as the most innovative, most influential, and most important composer and lyricist in modern Broadway history. He is the winner of an Academy Award, numerous Tony Award, multiple Grammy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. Some of his other accolades include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors (1993), the National Medal of Arts (1996), the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for Music (2006) and a special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre (2008).
Stephen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for Road Show (2008), Passion (1994), Assassins (1991), Into ... read more
Pick a Stephen Sondheim Broadway premiere in the last three decades – say, Sweeney Todd or Sunday in the Park with George or Into the Woods. Who was at the podium on opening night? If you guessed Paul Gemignani, you got it right. In fact, Maestro Gemignani has been a distinguished and constant presence in musical theater for the last forty years. In 2001 he was honored with a Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award®.
Significantly, for an artist so closely associated with Sondheim, Gemignani made his Broadway debut as a conductor in Sondheim’s Follies (1971), taking over the role of music ... read more
His early career was spent performing in Off-Broadway productions, including Class Enemy in 1979, for which he won a Theater World Award for outstanding stage debut.
His first major Broadway credit was the ill-fated Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince/George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along (1981), which underwent constant changes during an unusually long preview period and closed after only sixteen performances. His next show, the Athol Fugard play "Master Harold"...and the Boys - in which he portrayed a South African student opposite Danny Glover and Zakes Mokae as the family servants - ran for eight months.
Possibly his most significant Off-Broadway stage credit ... read more
