My History of Marriage (2011)

an Academy Award and two-time Grammy winner and multiple Tony and Emmy nominee, has composed prolifically for the theatre, films, television and recordings. On Broadway, he and lyricist Richard Maltby wrote the scores for the musicals Baby (Tony nominations for Best Score and Musical) and Big (Tony nomination for Best Score). His off-Broadway scores, also written with Maltby, include Starting Here, Starting Now (Grammy nomination), Closer Than Ever (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and Score), Urban Blight at the Manhattan Theater Club, and the off-Broadway musical The Sap of Life. He also wrote the incidental scores for As You Like It (NY Shakespeare Festival), Peter Ustinov’s The Unknown Soldier and His Wife (Lincoln Center), Donald Margulis’ The Loman Family Picnic (MTC), Schmulnick’s Waltz and Visiting Mr. Green. Maltby and Shire's current project, the musical Take Flight, with book by John Weidman, has been workshopped at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, presented in concert versions in Russia and Australia, and produced in London, at the Menier Chocolate Factory, and in Japan in 2007. It will have its first American full production at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre in the spring of 2010. With librettist Gene Scheer, Shire recently completed a one-act opera, A Stream of Voices, a one-act opera written with librettist Gene Scheer and commissioned by the Colorado Children’s Chorale, premiered in Denver last spring. Shire is currently working on a new musical with New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik.

Shire's many feature film scores include Norma Rae (Academy Award for Best Song, lyrics by Norman Gimbel), Francis Coppola’s The Conversation, All the President’s Men, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Short Circuit, 2010, Farewell, My lovely, The Hindenberg, Return to Oz and Saturday Night Fever, for which his work earned him two Grammy Awards. He most recently scored David Fincher’s Zodiac and Peter Hyams’ Beyond A Reasonable Doubt. His numerous television scores have garnered five Emmy nominations and include Glenn Close’s Sarah Plain and Tall, Christopher Reeve’s Rear Window, Raid on Entebbe, Oprah Winfrey’s The Women of Brewster Place, The Kennedys of Massachusetts, Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles, and Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women and Broadway Bound.  He also composed the theme song, with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, for the long-running Linda Lavin NBC series “Alice.” Mr. Shire and his wife, actress Didi Conn, have just completed the pilot for the new children’s animated musical television series “Didi Lightful” that they have developed and co-produced.

His songs, with lyrics by, among others, Richard Maltby, Norman Gimbel, Marilyn and Alan Bergman, Carol Connors, or himself, have been recorded by Barbra Streisand (who has recorded five of them, including “Starting Here, Starting Now,” which was the opening number of her recent world tour concert), Maureen McGovern, Melissa Manchester, Jennifer Warnes, Julie Andrews, John Pizzarelli, Liz Callaway, Lynne Wintersteller, Nancy Lamont, Vanessa Williams, Glenn Campbell, Johnny Mathis, Kiri Te Kanawa, Kathy Lee Gifford, Robert Goulet and Michael Crawford, among many others. “I’ll Never Say Goodbye”, with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, was nominated for an Academy Award the same year as “It Goes Like It Goes” was nominated and won an Oscar. His “With You I’m Born Again” (lyrics by Carol Connors) was an international Motown hit for Billy Preston and Syreeta, and he and David Pomeranz co-wrote “In Our Hands,” the theme song for the United Nations World Summit for Children.

Mr. Shire has conducted pops programs with the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Rockland Symphony, the North Jersey Symphony and the Yale’s Davenport Pops Orchestra; and for his film scores, he has conducted The London Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Irish Film Orchestra, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and the Munich Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Shire is a Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude graduate of Yale, serves on the executive council of the Dramatists Guild of America and is a trustee of the Rockland Conservatory of Music. His eldest son, screenwriter Matthew Shire lives in Los Angeles; and he, his wife and their teenage son Daniel make their home in the Hudson Valley.

has written for both the theatre and television. An Emmy winning comedy writer "All In The Family", Cable Ace Award winner "The Paper Chase", Writers Guild Award "The Bridge of Adam Rush" and creator of the comedy series “Something Wilder” for NBC, which won no awards, but enabled Mr. Kalcheim to return to his first love; playwriting. His plays include: Breakfast With Les and Bess at the Lambs Theatre,  Friends at Manhattan Theatre Club, Defiled at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, with Peter Falk and Jason Alexander, and Slouching Toward Hollywood at the Penguin Rep in Stony Point, NY and Seminar most recently in Tokyo, Japan.

is currently senior at the University of Chicago majoring in music composition. His classical works include three songs for mezzo-soprano and orchestra a piano scherzo and a four movement string quartet. He studies under the American composer Easley Blackwood and Polish composer Marta Ptazynska. . His first musical, What a Time for Love premiered when he was a senior in High School. This is his first collaboration with his father. At least on a musical. 

most recently directed the Off-Broadway revival of Cactus Flower and Leslie Uggam’s Uptown Downtown at the Pasadena Playhouse which won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for best solo performance.  He won the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival Award for Excellence in Direction for the world premiere musical Hurricane produced in the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is the former director of artistic production for the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City. He was associated with MTC for over 25 years and helped artistically guide more than 150 new plays and musicals, including the Tony®Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning Proof, and Doubt, and the Tony® Award winning Love! Valour! Compassion! And the musicals A Class Act (Tony Nomination for Best Musical) and Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party. At MTC he most recently directed Based on A Totally True Story. He was instrumental in the rebirth of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s Cabaret & Performance Conference, and has served as its artistic director since 2005. Under his guidance the conference has developed over 60 new shows, revues, and intimate musicals including [title of show] and The Story of My Life, both of which were produced on Broadway.

Mr. Bush directed Stormy Weather for the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles and Murderers for The Philadelphia Theatre Company, City Theatre in Pittsburgh, and the Emelin Theatre in New York, and the musicals Pure Heaven: a Party with Kay Thompson at the Emelin, and The Story of My Life at Toronto’s CanStage. He also directed Stormy Weather for The Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia. Mr. Bush directed the New York Music Theater Festival (NYMF) productions of The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde (2005), and Grammy Award-winning songwriter Marcus Hummon’s musicals Warrior (2006), and The Piper (2007). For the 2008 NYMF Festival he directed the Richard Rodgers Award winner musical To Paint the Earth. During his tenure as producing artistic director at Charlotte Repertory Theatre in Charlotte NC (2002-2004) he presented Hilary Swank in The Miracle Worker, Penny Fuller in The Glass Menagerie, and directed the 20th Anniversary production of Pump Boys and Dinettes. He also directed and co-wrote the book for the musical Let Me Sing which was co-produced with George Street Playhouse in New Jersey and Charlotte Repertory Theatre. He is currently the artistic director of Fidelity FutureStage in New York City; an education program that teaches playwriting to high school and middle school students and he directs their annual Broadway Finale event each spring.  

Broadway: Beauty & The Beast, Camelot, The Three Musketeers, A Christmas Carol. Nat'l Tours: Little House on the Prairie, Camelot, Phantom of the Opera, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Forum, Hans Christian Andersen. Off B'way: Johnny Guitar, Frankenstein, Treasure Island, Moby Dick. Television: Law & Order, Third Watch, Cupid, Ed, Sunset Beat, Police Story, Rapmaster Ronnie, Guiding Light, One Life to Live, Another World. Original Recordings: Johnny Guitar, Sundown, Frankenstein, Northbound Train.

is perhaps best known for her starring role as Ann Romano on the long-running series “One Day at a Time,” but her first love is theatre. She has appeared on Broadway in Applause (Tony® nomination, Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award) and off-Broadway in Grace and Glory, Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, Your Own Thing and Dames at Sea. Regional theatre performances include Dancing at Lughnasa and A Delicate Balance at Rubicon, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Communicating Doors at the Charlotte Repertory Theatre, Denial (World Premiere) at the Long Wharf Theatre, Shirley Valentine and Love Letters at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre, Gingerbread Lady, Love Letters, Peter Pan and Roberta at Studio Arena Theatre, Thousand Clowns and George M! at Papermill Playhouse, and Oh Coward at the Cincinnati Playhouse. She also appeared in record-breaking productions of Same Time Next Year, Annie Get Your Gun, Wait Until Dark and Carousel; and in Andrew Bergman’s Social Security, at the legendary Cape and Ogunquit Playhouses. Bonnie has also appeared in Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and in Love and Shrimp by Judith Viorst in L.A. and N.Y. She has performed her cabaret act in clubs in New York, L.A. and throughout the country. In addition to her nine years as the Emmy®-nominated star of her popular series, Bonnie also starred in many television movies and specials, including “Margaret Sanger: Portrait of a Rebel,” “The Law,” “Breaking Up is Hard to Do,” “Your Place or Mine” and her own CBS variety special “Bonnie and the Franklins.” Her beginnings as a tap dancer with Donald O’Connor led her to make “I Hate to Exercise, I Love to Tap,” a video aimed at getting families to exercise through dance. She was the spokesperson for Save the Children for five years and now serves on its Advisory Council. She received the Torch of Liberty Award from the Anti-Defamation League for her dedication to issues of human concern and in 1985 the organization Women For honored her with the Woman of Achievement Award. She also proudly serves on the Board of Advocates for Planned Parenthood and is a founding member of CCAP, a play-reading group committed to exposing high school students to our legacy of classic and contemporary

Upcoming Boardwalk Empire (HBO), Pokémon New York: Peg O’ My Heart (MITF Best Leading Actress Nomination), Rogues to Riches (York Theatre), Hurricane (NYMF), Republic (Acorn Theatre), ANGELS the Musical (Pre-Broadway run and NYMF). Regional: Eugene O’Neill Cabaret and Performance Conference, Gypsy (Ivoryton Playhouse), Megillah (Goodspeed Opera House), Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Seven Angels Theatre).  Recordings: ANGELS the Musical, Rogues to Riches, Perks of Writing a Musical. TV/Film: Perks of Writing A Musical, Working Class Nightmare, ANGELS in New York, Spinning into Butter. First Mediterranean cast for Disney Cruise Line where she shared the stage with pop pianist Jim Brickman.  www.brittneyleehamilton.com

Original casts of nine Broadway productions, including Into The Woods, Falsettos, A Catered Affair and Maltby & Shire’s Baby. Off-Broadway credits range from All In The Timing to Yiddle With A Fiddle. Regional credits include: Angels in America: Perestroika (Roy Cohn), Speed-the-Plow (Charlie Fox), A Doll’s House (Krogstad) and The Winters’ Tale (Autolycus). Philip can be heard on several cast recordings, and seen in half a dozen Law & Orde reruns.  www.1philiphoffman.com

Michael is thrilled to be part of this show and the festival! He recently finished touring with Avenue Q as Nicky/Trekki and could currently be seen in Q at New World Stages here in NYC. Michael would like to thank Harden Curtis Associates, his awesome cast, crew, and creative team for this opportunity, and his friends and family for all of their support!

is a native New Yorker and is best known for her roles as Randi Pritchard on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, Christie Bennet on LOVING, Concetta D'Angelo on RYAN'S HOPE, and Dr. Anna Tolan on ALL MY CHILDREN. On stage she most recently starred as Stephanie Dickinson in CACTUS FLOWER at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany and in the New York production at the Westside Arts Theater.  Other theatre credits include productions at the Eugene O'Neil Theater Center, Goodspeed Opera, Trinity Repertory, Studio Arena Theater, Rubicon Theater, Schoolhouse Theater and Roundabout Theater.  She recently starred in Psycho Therapy directed by Michael Bush, who also conceived and directed her cabaret WHAT IS A WOMAN at the Metropolitan Room. TV guest star on “Sex and the City,” “Law & Order,” “Kingpin,” “Now and Again,” “National Lampoon’s Hot Flashes.” Film credits include Town and Country, The Screamaker, Hudson River Blues, Motherhood. Lois resides in Manhattan and is the proud mother of three beautiful children!

NYMF: But I'm A Cheerleader, Smoking Bloomberg. BROADWAY: 42nd Street (and National Tour) OFF-BROADWAY: Being Audrey, Exactly Like You, Hysterical Blindness, Smoke on the Mountain, Berlin to Broadway, etc. REGIONAL: The Old Globe, CenterStage, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Ford's, Walnut Street, Denver Center, McCarter Theatre, St. Louis MUNY, etc. TV: Law & Order: SVU, many commercials. WRITER: The History, Discovery and Travel Channels (assistant story producer) as well as the upcoming musical Touché with composer Randy Redd. EDUCATION: BA, Vassar College. Many thanks to Michael and, as always, love to George Clooney. 

Broadway: The Sound of Music, 1776,  Victor/Victoria, Steel Pier, Cats, Dance a Little Closer,  A Change in the Heir, 110 in the Shade (NYC Opera). Tours: The Light in the Piazza, Disney’s On the Record,  Guys and Dolls (w/Maurice Hines), Cabaret (w/Joel Grey), 42nd Street (European tour). Regional: Kiss Me, Kate (St. Louis Rep), Shenandoah (Fords Theatre), Man of La Mancha (Pittsburgh Public),Pirates of Penzance (Guthrie Theatre), Breaking Legs (Coconut Grove Playhouse),  She Loves Me (Cincinnati Playhouse), Enter the Guardsman (Indiana Rep).

Cactus Flower (Off-Broadway, Assistant Director), Girl’s Night (Off-Broadway, Associate Choreographer), Hurricane the Musical (NYMF, Assistant Director and Choreographer), ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover (Musical Demolition, Assistant Choreographer), Pure Heaven (Assistant Choreographer, Emelin Theatre), Freshly Tossed (Assistant Choreographer, NYMF 2007, 2008), Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (re-created and adapted original choreography, Manitoba Theatre Centre and Dance Captain of the Broadway First National Tour).

Steven Ray Watkins has been playing the piano for 43 years, and has been working professionally as a performer and musician for 39 years. As an actor he has appeared in “The Last Session,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and in the national tours of “Big,” “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Showboat.” As a musician, he has worked as a session player, as a musical director and vocal director in the theater, and most frequently as an arranger and musical director in the New York City cabaret circuit. He has worked with such names as Hugh Jackman, Beyonce, Patti LuPone, John Turturro, Karen Mason, Louise Pitre, Amanda McBroom, and Sharon McNight, among many others, and has received two Bistro Awards andthree MAC awards. This is his fourth season working with Michael Bush on the Cabaret Conference, and he is thrilled to return.

So happy to be working with Michael Bush again after working on  NYMTF's successful run of Hurricane the Musisical. NYC: Camelot in Concert starringJeremy Irons (Shubert Theater), Goodspeed Opera House: M y One and Only (CT Critics Circle Award for Best Choreography,)  How to Succeed in Business... ( CT CC Award nom.,)  MUNY:this seasons  Bye Bye Birdie and Singin in the Rain , Beauty and the Beast, 42nd Street, 50 Years of Muny Magic, and White Christmas. Pure Heaven directed by Michael Bush, and the feature film, Made for Each Other. Associate Choreographer on Broadway:42nd Street (Revival), Irving Berlin's White Christmas, State Fair, Ain't Broadway Grand. City Center Encore's productions of  No No Nannette, Face the Music, Of the I Sing, Do Re, Me.  Extensive dance company work including American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive. 

Karen Ann Ledger (Costume Designer) Previous NYMF Shows: Warrior, Piper, Hurricane. Other NY Credits: Cactus Flower, Bye, Bye, Big Guy (NY Fringe Festival), 12th Night, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Night of the Iguana, Sister Cities, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, How I Learned to Drive, House of Blue Leaves (TSchreiber Studio), Lucky to be Me (Birdland), Die Walkure (MCM), The Appointment\ (Abingdon Theatre). Regional Theatre Credits: Seattle Repertory Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, 5th Ave Theatre, Prince Music Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Capital Repertory Theatre, Utah Festival Opera, Western Playhouse, TheatreFest, Childsplay of Arizona, Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, Empty Space Theatre, Village Theatre, Weston Playhouse, George Street Playhouse

Cactus Flower (Off-Broadway); Noises Off (Dorset Theatre Festival); Dram of Drummhicit (La Jolla Playhouse); Liberty Smith (Ford's Theatre); The Winter's Tale (Guthrie Theater); Bus Stop, She Loves Me (Huntington Theatre Company); The Circle, I Do! I Do! (Westport Country Playhouse); Summer and Smoke (Manhattan School of Music); Title of Show (George Street Playhouse); Sweeney Todd (Barrington Stage Company); The Syringa Tree, Bach at Leipzig (Portland Stage Company); The Memorandum (TACT); The Lisbon Traviata (Kennedy Center); The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Edward II, Amadeus, Cymbeline (Chicago Shakespeare); Knickerbocker (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Shanghai Moon, The Lady in Question (Bay Street Theatre). Over the past 12 years Philip has served as Associate Lighting Designer on over 35 Broadway and West End plays and musicals.

Previously with Michael Bush and NYMF:  Hurricane (2009) winner NYMF 2009 Best Overall Design, To Paint The Earth (2008), and Warrior (2006). Recent works include:  Sphinx Winx (Beckett), La Barberia (New World Stages), WTC View (59E59), Feeder: A Love Story (HERE), Intimate Apparel (Two River Theatre Co.), Stella (Muna Tseng Dance Projects, Danspace).  www.dmlsound.com

 Her work has been seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally, internationally, on television, film, the internet, and heard on radio. Projects she has been involved with have won numerous awards including the Tony, OBIES, Artios, Pulitzer Prize winners/nominees, Sundance Audience Award, Cannes Prize Du Publique.and Comic Con awards. Selected Broadway and Off-Broadway: Olive and the Bitter Herbs; A Strange and Separate People; Manipulation; Cactus Flower; Black Tie; In Transit; Secrets of the Trade; The Temperamentals; Dividing the Estate (2009 Tony Nomination);Bells are Ringing; Dinner with Friends; an oak tree NY/LA(Artios award winner)She is the resident casting director for Primary Stages; New York Classical Theatre and works frequently with the Pearl Theatre Company as well as many regional theatres. Numerous Indepents Feature Films.  Member Casting Society of America and League of Professional Theatre Women.

Kat is thrilled to be back at NYMF with such a talented team! Selected New York Stage Management credits; Altar Boyz, My Big Gay Italian Wedding - Davenport Theatricals, La Boheme, Cavaleria Rusticana, I Paggilaci - NYCO, President Harding is A Rock Star, Boozy, Heddatron - Les Freres Corbusier, Little Flower of East Orange - The Public/LABrynith Theater, Soul Samurai -Vampire Cowboys/Ma-Yi Theater, CHINA! The Whole Enchilada - Big Boy Strut Productions & The Flood, Illyria, Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge and many, many others - Prospect Theater Company. Special thanks to Lisa and as always to Jaime.

Previous NYMF: History of War (PSM). Recent Credits: Lasburgh Layover (Ars Nova, PSM); Lysistrata Jones and Hello Again (Transport Group, SM); American Realness Festival (PSM, Expierimental Theater). Donald also lends, or has lent, his Stage Management (among other) skills to: At Hand Theatre Company, Barrington Stage Company, Chase Brock Experience, Clubbed Thumb, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center (National Music Theater Conference), LAVA, New York Stage and Film, Polybe + Seats and Prospect Theater Company. Graduate, Skidmore College. Resident, Brooklyn.

Recent credits include: Spy Garbo (3LD), Milk (New Georges, HERE Arts Center), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (3LD), The Duchess of Malfi (Red Bull Theater). Recent credits: How to be a Good Italian Daughter (Cherry Lane), F#@king Up Everything (NYMF), My Illustrious Wasteland (NYMF), Into the Hazard (Henry 5) (Walkerspace), In Security (3LD), Stormy Weather (Pasadena Playhouse: asst. director), The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall (Theatre Row/Stage 13), To Paint the Earth (NYMF), I Come For Love (NYMF), SA KA LA (45 Bleecker/Oslo Elsewhere), Jeffrey Hatcher's Murderers (Emelin), The Piper (NYMF), Surface to Air (Symphony Space), The Polish Play (Walkerspace), Character (Prospect), Warrior (NYMF), Behind the Limelight (NYMF), Hot and Sweet (NYMF), Ibsen + Fosse 2006 with Oslo Elsewhere at 59E59: Rosmersholm and deathvariations,  Manhattan Madcaps of 1924, Jeff Daniels' Apartment 3A, The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde (NYMF). Previously, she was the associate producer at Symphony Space and on the artistic staff at Manhattan Theatre Club (Doubt, Reckless, Rabbit Hole, Brooklyn Boy, etc.). She has also worked at the New 42nd Street, Symphony Space, American Repertory Theatre and New York Stage & Film. Lisa is the Midtown International Theatre Festival's senior artistic director of plays, and the general manager for National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals. 

My History of Marriage marks Eve's 5th season with NYMF. She is also working with Lisa Dozier on two other shows in this years festival, Outlaws and TUT. Previous NYMF credits include: Nighttime Traffic, Judas and Me, and Jerusalem Syndrome. Other producing credits include 18 Paintings at HERE Arts Center, A Little New Music concert, and In Their Own Voice. She has worked at various theaters in New York and was most recently working in play publishing. Recipient of the Anna Sosenko Grant. Graduate of Sarah Lawrence College.