Michael Friedman (composer)
Encyclopedia
Michael Friedman is an American
composer
and lyricist
. He is a founding Associate Artist of The Civilians
and an Artistic Associate at New York Theatre Workshop
. He received a 2007 Obie award for sustained excellence. His musical Saved earned him a Lucille Lortel Award
nomination for Best Musical. His musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
opened on Broadway
in October 2010.
. While growing up he was classically trained in cello and piano, but didn't write original work for theatre until he was 24. He attended Germantown Friends School
, after which he studied history and literature at Harvard. While at Harvard, Friedman thought of music, he volunteered to help a student written musical. He then took a music composition class taught by Elizabeth Swados
, who was a guest artist at Harvard, saw something she liked.
In 1998, Swados hand picked Friedman to musically direct Andrei Şerban
's version of Cymbeline
at The Public Theater. Later in that same year, Friedman worked with Swados and Serban at American Repertory Theatre
on Merchant of Venice.
In 1999 he worked with Albert Innaurato
and Christopher Durang
at the ART for their production of The Idiots Karamazov. The composer for the show, Peter Golub, encouraged him to write his own music. In the same year, he interned at the Williamstown Theatre Festival
and met future collaborators Stephen Cosson, Daniel Goldstein, Will Frears, and Nicholas Martin. Cosson needed a musical director in Williamstown for his production of The Time of Your Life
. After he wrote his first songs for Frear's show A Servant of Two Masters, which debuted at the festival, Cosson formed The Civilians
and Friedman began writing for their first show, Canard, Canard, Goose?.
In 2004 the premiere of (I Am) Nobody's Lunch premiered at Performance Space 122
, and it is thought to be the only musical that is about epistemology. The music in the show is also reminiscent of Kurt Weill
.
2007 saw the premiere of In the Bubble at the American Music Theatre Project
, with collaboration by Rinne Groff
and Joe Popp.
, New York Theatre Workshop
, Roundabout Theatre Company
, Second Stage
, SoHo Rep, Signature Theatre, Theater for a New Audience, and The Acting Company. Regionally, at Hartford Stage, Humana Festival, ART, Berkeley Rep, Dallas Theatre Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Portland Center Stage, and internationally at London’s Soho and Gate Theatres, and the Edinburgh Festival. He also wrote the shows The Essential Alice (with director Des McAnuff
and writer Annie Weisman Macomber at La Jolla Playhouse
), Post Office (with Melissa James Gibson
at Center Theatre Group
), The Great Immensity (with Steven Cosson at the Foundry Theatre), and Unknown Soldier (with Daniel Goldstein at Huntington Theatre Company
).
He was also the dramaturge for the recent Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun
, directed by Kenny Leon
. Upcoming: Original music for the first New York revival of Tony Kushner
's Angels in America, directed by Michael Greif
.
Film/TV work includes On Common Ground, Beloved, Emile Norman: By His Own Design, Floaters, and Affair Game.
Friedman has been the composer and lyricist for the company’s Canard, Canard, Goose?, Gone Missing
, [I Am] Nobody's Lunch
, This Beautiful City
, and co-authored Paris Commune. Upcoming: Porn Musical
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
. He is a founding Associate Artist of The Civilians
The Civilians
The Civilians is an investigative theatre company in New York City founded in 2001 by Artistic Director Steve Cosson. The Civilians artists pursue their inquiries using interviews, community residencies, research, and other methods...
and an Artistic Associate at New York Theatre Workshop
New York Theatre Workshop
__notoc__New York Theatre Workshop is an Off-Broadway theatre noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 East 4th Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it houses a 198-seat theatre for its mainstage productions, and a...
. He received a 2007 Obie award for sustained excellence. His musical Saved earned him a Lucille Lortel Award
Lucille Lortel Awards
The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986...
nomination for Best Musical. His musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is a rock musical with music and lyrics written by Michael Friedman, and a book by its director Alex Timbers.The show is a comedic Wild West rock musical about the founding of the Democratic Party...
opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in October 2010.
Background
Friedman grew up in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. While growing up he was classically trained in cello and piano, but didn't write original work for theatre until he was 24. He attended Germantown Friends School
Germantown Friends School
Germantown Friends School is a coeducational K-12 school in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends . It is governed by a School Committee whose members are drawn mainly...
, after which he studied history and literature at Harvard. While at Harvard, Friedman thought of music, he volunteered to help a student written musical. He then took a music composition class taught by Elizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados is an American writer, composer, musician, and theatre director. While some of her subject matter is humorous, such as her satirical look at Ronald Reagan, Rap Master Ronnie, and Doonesbury - both collaborations with Garry Trudeau - much of her work deals with dark issues such as...
, who was a guest artist at Harvard, saw something she liked.
In 1998, Swados hand picked Friedman to musically direct Andrei Şerban
Andrei Serban
Andrei Șerban is a Romanian-born American theater director. A major name in twentieth-century theater, he is renowned for his innovative and iconoclastic interpretations and stagings...
's version of Cymbeline
Cymbeline
Cymbeline , also known as Cymbeline, King of Britain or The Tragedy of Cymbeline, is a play by William Shakespeare, based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance...
at The Public Theater. Later in that same year, Friedman worked with Swados and Serban at American Repertory Theatre
American Repertory Theatre
The American Repertory Theater is a professional not-for-profit theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to neglected works of the past; and to established classical texts...
on Merchant of Venice.
In 1999 he worked with Albert Innaurato
Albert Innaurato
Albert Innaurato is an American playwright, theatre director, and writer.Innaurato was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1947. After graduating from California Institute of the Arts, Innaurato attended the Yale School of Drama...
and Christopher Durang
Christopher Durang
Christopher Ferdinand Durang is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s.- Life :...
at the ART for their production of The Idiots Karamazov. The composer for the show, Peter Golub, encouraged him to write his own music. In the same year, he interned at the Williamstown Theatre Festival
Williamstown Theatre Festival
The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a regional summer stock theatre on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, founded in 1954 by Williams College news director, Ralph Renzi, and drama program chairman, David C. Bryant. The theatre was conceived as a way to use the Adams...
and met future collaborators Stephen Cosson, Daniel Goldstein, Will Frears, and Nicholas Martin. Cosson needed a musical director in Williamstown for his production of The Time of Your Life
The Time of Your Life
The Time of Your Life is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened 25 October 1939 at the Booth Theatre in New York City...
. After he wrote his first songs for Frear's show A Servant of Two Masters, which debuted at the festival, Cosson formed The Civilians
The Civilians
The Civilians is an investigative theatre company in New York City founded in 2001 by Artistic Director Steve Cosson. The Civilians artists pursue their inquiries using interviews, community residencies, research, and other methods...
and Friedman began writing for their first show, Canard, Canard, Goose?.
In 2004 the premiere of (I Am) Nobody's Lunch premiered at Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122, generally known as P.S. 122, is a not-for-profit arts organization and one of the longest standing venues dedicated to contemporary performance art in New York City. Founded in 1979 in the abandoned Public School 122 building at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street in the East...
, and it is thought to be the only musical that is about epistemology. The music in the show is also reminiscent of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
.
2007 saw the premiere of In the Bubble at the American Music Theatre Project
American Music Theatre Project
The American Music Theatre Project was introduced in May 2005 by Northwestern University’s School of Communication, in collaboration with the School of Music, Kellogg School of Management, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate School...
, with collaboration by Rinne Groff
Rinne Groff
-Biography:Groff was trained at Yale University and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she currently teaches.A founding member of Elevator Repair Service Theater Company, she has been a part of the writing, staging, and performing of their shows since the company’s inception in...
and Joe Popp.
Career
He wrote music and lyrics for Saved, In the Bubble, The Brand New Kid, God’s Ear, and The Blue Demon. His music has also been heard at the New York Shakespeare FestivalNew York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
, New York Theatre Workshop
New York Theatre Workshop
__notoc__New York Theatre Workshop is an Off-Broadway theatre noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 East 4th Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it houses a 198-seat theatre for its mainstage productions, and a...
, Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...
, Second Stage
Second Stage Theatre
Second Stage Theatre is an award-winning contemporary Off-Broadway theater company.-Mission:The theatre's mission is to give new life to contemporary American plays and to produce the world premiers of new plays by both established and emerging playwrights...
, SoHo Rep, Signature Theatre, Theater for a New Audience, and The Acting Company. Regionally, at Hartford Stage, Humana Festival, ART, Berkeley Rep, Dallas Theatre Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Portland Center Stage, and internationally at London’s Soho and Gate Theatres, and the Edinburgh Festival. He also wrote the shows The Essential Alice (with director Des McAnuff
Des McAnuff
Desmond McAnuff is the Canadian-American artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and director of musical theatre of such Broadway productions as Big River, The Who's Tommy and Jersey Boys.-Biography:...
and writer Annie Weisman Macomber at La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. -Background:...
), Post Office (with Melissa James Gibson
Melissa James Gibson
-Life:The child of former BC Liberal MLA Gordon Gibson and his journalist wife Valerie, Gibson grew up in North Vancouver. She graduated from Columbia University and from the Yale School of Drama with an M.F.A. in Playwriting. She is working on commissions for the La Jolla Playhouse and The...
at Center Theatre Group
Center Theatre Group
Center Theatre Group is a non-profit arts organization located in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest theatre companies in the nation, programming subscription seasons year-round at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and the Kirk Douglas Theatre...
), The Great Immensity (with Steven Cosson at the Foundry Theatre), and Unknown Soldier (with Daniel Goldstein at Huntington Theatre Company
Huntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre Company is a non-profit professional theater company in Boston, Massachusetts. The Huntington has garnered six Elliot Norton Awards and three Tony Award nominations for productions that were transferred to Broadway after critically acclaimed productions in Boston...
).
He was also the dramaturge for the recent Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes...
, directed by Kenny Leon
Kenny Leon
Kenny Leon is an African-American director notable for his work on Broadway and in regional theater. His success on Broadway has made him one of its foremost African-American directors....
. Upcoming: Original music for the first New York revival of Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...
's Angels in America, directed by Michael Greif
Michael Greif
Michael Greif is a stage director and producer, born in Brooklyn, New York. He has received three Tony Award nominations and won the Obie Award....
.
Film/TV work includes On Common Ground, Beloved, Emile Norman: By His Own Design, Floaters, and Affair Game.
The Civilians
With The CiviliansThe Civilians
The Civilians is an investigative theatre company in New York City founded in 2001 by Artistic Director Steve Cosson. The Civilians artists pursue their inquiries using interviews, community residencies, research, and other methods...
Friedman has been the composer and lyricist for the company’s Canard, Canard, Goose?, Gone Missing
Gone Missing (play)
Gone Missing is a 2003 musical by The Civilians, an investigative theater company in New York City. This piece of musical theatre is composed of interviews conducted by the company on the subject of loss...
, [I Am] Nobody's Lunch
(I Am) Nobody's Lunch
Nobody's Lunch is a 2006 play with music produced by The Civilians, an investigative theater company in New York City. Based on interviews conducted in 2003, the play explores the compromised issues of trust and truth that arose between the American government and its people during the lead-up to...
, This Beautiful City
This Beautiful City (play)
This Beautiful City is a play with music by the investigative theatre company The Civilians. The play engages with "the expansion of the Evangelical movement in Colorado Springs" as well as the gulf between the Evangelical and secular communities in the region...
, and co-authored Paris Commune. Upcoming: Porn Musical
External links
- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/arts/music/01friedman.html
- http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/28431/musical-theater-report-the-anthropologist