LIBRETTIST

Thomas Meehan (Book) received the Tony Award for co-writing the book for The Producers in 2001 and in 2003 for co-writing the book for Hairspray.

He received his first Tony Award in 1977 for writing the book of Annie, which was his first Broadway show, and has written the books for the musicals Rocky, Elf the Musical, Cry-Baby, Young Frankenstein, Chaplin, Bombay Dreams, I Remember Mama, Ain’t Broadway Grand and Annie Warbucks.

In addition, he was a long-time contributor of humor to The New Yorker, an Emmy-Award winning writer of television comedy, and a collaborator on a number of screenplays, including Mel Brooks' Spaceballs and To Be Or Not To Be.

Mr. Meehan was also a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild. He and his wife, Carolyn, divided their time between a home in Nantucket and an apartment in Greenwich Village, near which, on Hudson Street, she owned and presided over the long-running and near-legendary children's store Peanut Butter & Jane. 

MUSIC

A long-standing member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in January 2002, an inductee into The Theater Hall of Fame, Charles Strouse's first Broadway musical, Bye Bye Birdie (1960), won him a Tony® Award and the London Critics Best Foreign Musical Award. In 1970, Applause, starring Lauren Bacall, achieved the same honors and his smash hit, Annie (1977), also won a Tony® for Best Score as well as two Grammy Awards®.

Some of his other musicals include All American, Golden Boy (starring Sammy Davis Jr.), It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman, I and Albert, directed in London by John Schlesinger, and Dance a Little Closer, written with Alan Jay Lerner. Charlie & Algernon won a 1981 Tony® nomination for Best Score, as did Rags in 1987 and Nick and Nora in 1992. He wrote both the music and lyrics for off-Broadway's Mayor, and teamed again with Martin Charnin to create Annie Warbucks, the sequel to Annie.

His film scores include Bonnie & Clyde, The Night They Raided Minsky’s, and All Dogs Go to Heaven.

“Those Were The Days," the theme song for TV's All in the Family, is a Strouse song, with lyrics by his most frequent collaborator, Lee Adams. “Born Too Late", a 1958 pop song written with Fred Tobias, was a top-10 BILLBOARD chart hit and is still heard on many oldies stations. The quadruple platinum album title song by Jay-Z, “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)", won the 1999 Grammy for the best rap album, charted for more than a year and won the BILLBOARD 1998 R&B Album of the Year Award.

Strouse's far-ranging talents include chamber and orchestral works, a piano concerto, a two-piano sonata, and operas. His latest choral work, “The Child In Us All", premiered in Spring, 2000. Nightingale, an opera based on the Hans Christian Andersen story for which he wrote music, book and lyrics, was recorded by Sarah Brightman. Strouse was commissioned in 2001 to write Concerto America for the pianist Jeffrey Biegel. The work premiered in June 2002 with the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall.

Charles Strouse created the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, where he encouraged the talents of countless young composers, writers and performers. In 1999, Strouse received the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers Award for Career Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.

In December, 1995, a TV reinterpretation of the classic Bye Bye Birdie (starring Jason Alexander and pop-star Vanessa Williams) aired on ABC-TV. The 1995/96 Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics was given to the new song written for and performed by Vanessa Williams: “Let's Settle Down". Another TV interpretation in 1999, Annie, aired on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney, swept the ratings by winning over 40 million viewers, won the 1999 Peabody Award and 2 Emmy Awards. The show starred Kathy Bates, Audra McDonald, Alan Cumming, Kristin Chenoweth, Victor Garber, Andrea McArdle and Alicia Morton as Annie and ranked #1 as movie of the year.

A revised Golden Boy was produced by the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven (November, 2000); and the ENCORES! Series presented the show in March, 2002. Golden Boy was performed at the Greenwich Theatre in England in June, 2003. The Night They Raided Minsky’s, which Charles Strouse originally scored for film, has been turned into a full-length musical. The Broadway-bound version has a book by the late Michael Okrent and Evan Hunter, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. The Manhattan Theatre Club scheduled the show for its 2003-04 season. An adaptation of the Paddy Chayevsky film Marty, had a successful regional theatre run at Huntington Theatre in Boston in September, 2002. The show reunites Strouse with Lee Adams as lyricist; the book is by Rupert Holmes. John C. Reilly starred in the Huntington production and would later again star when the show comes to Broadway next season.

LYRICS & DIRECTED ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION

Martin Charnin created the role of Big Deal in the original Broadway company of West Side Story in 1957, the only acting job he ever had. He began writing during West Side Story and his first collaborator was Mary Rodgers.

He was subsequently the director, lyricist, composer, librettist, producer or a combination of the aforementioned, for over 140 theatrical productions, including Annie, Annie Warbucks, the Rock Opera version of Joan of Arc, Mata Hari, Loose Lips, Star-Crossed, Sid Caesar and Company, Carnal Knowledge, In Persons starring Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, The Flowering Peach, Winchell, the revised Can Can by Cole Porter (for which he wrote a new libretto), Cafe Crown, Mike, Laughing Matters, The No Frills Revue, The First, On the Swing Shift, A Little Family Business, Upstairs at O'Neals, The National Lampoon Show, Lena Horne on Broadway, I Remember Mama, Hot Spot, Zenda,Put It In Writing, Fallout, Kaleidoscope, Ballad For A Firing Squad, La Strada, Nash at Nine, Music Music, Two by Two, And in London, Bar Mitzvah Boy, Bless the Bride, The 9 1/2 Quid Revue, and internationally and regionally, 17 productions of Annie.

In the 60s and 70s, he turned to Television and created 7 specials that garnered over 15 Emmy Awards, and the Peabody Award for Broadcasting.

His collaborators included Peter Allen, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Keith Levenson, Michael Danziker, Peter Sipos, Mary Rodgers, Marvin Hamlisch, Richard Rodgers, and Charles Strouse.

He wrote for and directed among others, Fred Astaire, Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, Lena Horne, Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury, Johnny Mathis, Bill Murray, Jon Stewart, Bebe Neuwirth, Bernadette Peters, Sarah Jessica Parker, Gilda Radner, Molly Ringwald, Chita Rivera, Lou Reed, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Joan Rivers, Chuck D., Phoebe Snow, Shirley MacLaine, Marlo Thomas, Julianne Moore, Martha Plimpton, and Barbra Streisand.

Charnin was the artistic director of Seattle's Showtunes for 7 years, before moving back to New York for the 4th incarnation of Annie on Broadway. He also created a one-woman theatrical entertainment for his wife, Broadway and television star, Shelly Burch.