Theatre Press Releases The Kleban Foundation was established in 1988 under the will of Edward L. Kleban, best known as the Tony® and Pulitzer Prize winning lyricist of the musical A Chorus Line. The will made provision for two annual prizes, which in recent years have totaled $100,000 each payable over two years, to be given to the most promising lyricist and librettist in American Musical Theatre. The judges making the final determination this year were Tony Award-winning librettist Marshall Brickman (Jersey Boys, The Addams Family), President and Executive Director of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization Ted Chapin, and Tony Award-winning actress Debra Monk (Curtains, Steel Pier).
“For two decades, The Kleban Prize has recognized and honored the American Musical Theatre’s brightest developing talents,” says Tony Award winner Richard Maltby, Jr, President of the Kleban Foundation. “The Kleban Prize is unique in that it is bestowed not just for an artist’s previous achievements, but for the promise of creativity to come. In Ed Kleban’s experience, young composers always seemed able to support themselves in the theatre, but promising lyricists and librettists often had to struggle. This Prize was Kleban’s attempt to help promising writers when they needed support most -- when starting out. The Prize has recognized musical theatre artists who went on to create such notable productions as Avenue Q, Grey Gardens, The Wild Party, Parade, Shrek, The Last Five Years, The Little Mermaid, Assassins, The Wedding Singer and Legally Blonde.”
Previous recipients of the annual Kleban Prize include David Lindsay-Abaire (Shrek), Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years), John Bucchino (A Catered Affair, It’s Only Life), Gretchen Cryer (I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road, The Last Sweet Days of Isaac), Michael Korie (Grey Gardens, Happiness), Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez (Avenue Q), Michael John LaChiusa (See What I Want To See, The Wild Party), Glenn Slater (The Little Mermaid) and John Weidman (Pacific Overtures, Road Show, Assassins).
ABOUT THE 2012 KLEBAN PRIZE WINNERS
MARCY HEISLER received the Fred Ebb Award in 2009 for outstanding songwriting, along with longtime composing partner Zina Goldrich. Among their musicals currently in development are an adaptation of the 1998 film Ever After in collaboration with director Kathleen Marshall; Screaming Like A Fool, a collection of romantic comedy songs, and The Great American Mousical, written with Hunter Bell and premiering this November at Goodspeed Opera House's Norma Terris Theatre. The production will be directed by Julie Andrews, choreographed by Christopher Gatelli, and designed by Tony Walton. Past productions include Off-Broadway's Junie B Jones, nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award in the category of Best Musical, and currently touring with Theatreworks USA, and Dear Edwina, which played Off-Broadway for 3 seasons at Daryl Roth's DR2 theatre, received Drama Desk nominations for Best Music and Best Lyrics, and is currently licensed by Music Theatre International. Also licensed by MTI is her Helen Hayes Award nominated musical farce Snow White, Rose Red (and Fred), commissioned by the John F Kennedy Center for their 2010 season. As a cowriter/performer, she co-stars in The Marcy and Zina Show, which is based at Birdland in NYC and travels to London in January 2013. Her two sheet music books, Goldrich and Heisler, Volumes 1 and 2, are distributed by Hal Leonard, and a CD of her work with Goldrich was released on Yellow Sound Label in 2009. Alphabet City Cycle, a collection of her poems set to music by composer Georgia Stitt, is available on PS Classics, as is the Dear Edwina original recording. An active member of both ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild, Marcy serves on the Publications Committee and is a contributing writer to Dramatist magazine. She graduated with High Honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program, and previously studied acting at Northwestern University. She currently resides in New York City.
ANDREW GERLE wrote book, music and lyrics for GLORYANA, which received a 2011 Richard Rodgers Award and was presented in a series of readings at the Public Theater last fall. Other works for theater include Meet John Doe (with Eddie Sugarman, 2006 Jonathan Larson Award, nine Helen Hayes nominations); The Tutor (with Maryrose Wood, three Richard Rodgers Awards 2002-2004); Brighter Things (based on the stories of John Cheever); A Perfect Christmas (with Maryrose Wood, based on the stories of O. Henry); and the play Renovations (based on the memoir by John Marchese, world premiere 2011 at White Plains Performing Arts Center). His opera THE BEACH (libretto by Royce Vavrek) was presented as part of New York City Opera’s 2011 VOX reading series, and his song cycle “Anacreontea: Drink Well and Sing” was premiered at London’s Wigmore Hall in 2011 by acclaimed countertenor Lawrence Zazzo. Andrew has been a Fellow at the MacDowell Artists’ Colony and a writer-in-residence at the Sundance Theater Institute at Ucross, the Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat and the Eugene O'Neill Musical Theatre Conference. As a musical director, he has worked on dozens of Off-Broadway, regional and touring productions, and was heard as the “hands” of Coalhouse Walker, Jr., in the recent Tony Award-winning revival of Ragtime. He has served as musical director and accompanist for such distinguished artists as Kitty Carlisle Hart, John Raitt, Jennifer Holliday, Leslie Uggams, Liz Callaway, Mary Testa and Betty Buckley. A CD of his jazz arrangements of the songs of Maltby & Shire with vocalist Christa Justus was released in 2010 under the PS Classics Label. His book, The Enraged Accompanist’s Guide to the Perfect Audition, was published last March by Hal Leonard (Applause Books), and he is on the faculty of Yale University, where he teaches musical theater songwriting and performance.
MATT SCHATZ is a playwright, lyricist, composer and screenwriter based in New York City. Most recently, he was commissioned by the Actors Theatre of Louisville to write music and lyrics for Oh, Gastronomy! which premiered this spring at the 36th Humana Festival of New American Plays. In February 2012, Matt’s original musical Love Trapezoid received a developmental production at the Astoria Performing Arts Center. His play The Tallest Building in the World enjoyed a critically acclaimed run at Luna Stage in West Orange, New Jersey in 2011. Another original musical, Georama, with a book co-written by West Hyler will be developed this summer at the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Minnesota. Matt has received three commissions from the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science and Technology Project. He has been a finalist and twice a semi-finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship and was a finalist for the 2009 Fred Ebb Award for excellence in musical theatre songwriting (with composer Dina Pruzhansky). Matt is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Page 73 Productions’ “Interstate 73” writers group, the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop and the Dramatist Guild. He’s an alumnus of “Youngblood” at EST, and holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. He’s currently working on a number of musical and non-musical projects for the stage and screen including an original hip hop musical about an amateur basketball slam dunk contest. Mattschatz.com
Submission guidelines and an application for the 2013 Kleban Prize are available on the New Dramatists website, www.newdramatists.org.
The postmark deadline for the next competition is September 15, 2012.
THE KLEBAN FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Andre Bishop Elliot H. Brown Sheldon Harnick Richard Maltby, Jr. John Weidman Maury Yeston
1990-91
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: MARK CAMPBELL
Most promising musical theatre librettist: GRETCHEN CRYER
Judges: JERRY HERMAN, STEPHEN SONDHEIM, JOSEPH STEIN
1991-92
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: CRAIG CARNELIA
Judges: LEE ADAMS, MARY ROGERS, STEPHEN SCHWARTZ
1992-93
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: BARRY KLEINBORT
Most promising musical theatre librettist: LANIE ROBERTSON
Judges: JERRY BOCK, BETTY COMDON, GRETCHEN CRYER
1993-94
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: (tie) JOE KEENAN and JIM MORGAN
Most promising musical theatre librettist: WILLIAM STRZEMPEK
Judges: SUSAN BIRKENHEAD, CRAIG CARNELIA, JACK VIERTEL
1994-95
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: MARK WALDROP
Most promising musical theatre librettist: JOHN JILER
Judges: SHELDON HARNICK, CHARLES STROUSE, WENDY WASSERSTEIN
1995-96
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: GLENN SLATER
Most promising musical theatre librettist: JOHN WEIDMAN
Judges: CAROL HALL, WILLIAM FINN, JONATHAN TUNICK
1996-97
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: MICHAEL KORIE
Most promising musical theatre librettist: BRIAN CRAWLEY
Judges: MARTIN CHARNIN, JAMES FREYDBERG, DAVID SHIRE
1997-98
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: SARAH SCHLESINGER
Most promising musical theatre librettist: (tie) LISSA LEVIN and LUIS SANTIERO
Judges: ELLEN FITZHUGH, JOHN MORRIS, JOHN WEIDMAN
1998-99
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: KIRSTEN CHILDS
Most promising musical theatre librettist: MICHAEL JOHN LACHIUSA
Judges: LYNN AHRENS, JOHN JILER, JOHN KANDER
1999-2000
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: (tie) MARION ADLER, CHAD BEGUELIN, ROBERT LOPEZ/JEFF MARX and DAVID SPENCER
Most promising musical theatre librettist: STEPHEN COLE
Judges: FRED EBB, HENRY KRIEGER, WILLIAM RUSSELL
2000-01
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: (tie) JOHN BUCCHINO and PATRICK COOK
Most promising musical theatre librettist: CHARLES LEIPART
Judges: NAN KNIGHTON, MICHAEL JOHN LACHIUSA, GLENN SLATER
2001-02
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: JASON ROBERT BROWN
Most promising musical theatre librettist: LORI MCKELVEY
Judges: JEROME COOPERSMITH, MARVIN HAMLISCH, MARSHA NORMAN
2002-03
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: NELL BENJAMIN
Most promising musical theatre librettist: SUSAN DILALLO
Judges: ARTHUR KOPIT, CHARLES LEIPART, FRANK WILDHORN
2003-04
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: LAURENCE O’KEEFE
Most promising musical theatre librettist: JULIA JORDAN
Judges: SUSAN DILALLO, BILL GOLDSTEIN, LONNIE PRICE
2004-05
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: DAVID JAVERBAUM
Most promising musical theatre librettist: (tie) CHERYL L. DAVIS and KEN STONE
Judges: JULIA JORDAN, MICHAEL JOHN LACHIUSA, JEFFREY SWEET
2005-06
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: (tie) ALISON LOUISE HUBBARD
and ROBERT L. FREEDMAN/STEVEN LUTVAK
Most promising musical theatre librettist: LAURENCE HOLZMAN/FELICIA NEEDLEMAN
Judges: CHERYL L. DAVIS, SUSAN DRURY, KEN STONE
2006-07
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: JOE ICONIS
Most promising musical theatre librettist: JEREMY DESMON
Judges: RICK ELICE, CAROL HALL, CHARLES KOPELMAN
2007-08
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: DAVID LINDSAY-ABAIRE
Most promising musical theatre librettist: (tie) LAURA HARRINGTON
and BILL SOLLY/DONALD WARD
Judges: BETH BLICKERS, LINDA KLINE, GILBERT PARKER
2008-09
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: BETH FALCONE
Most promising musical theatre librettist: KAIT KERRIGAN
Judges: SHELDON HARNICK, THOMAS Z. SHEPARD, SHERMAN YELLEN
2009-10
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: PETER MILLS
Most promising musical theatre librettist: BARRY WYNER
Judges: CRAIG CARNELIA, SUSAN DRURY, JEFFREY SWEET
2010-11
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: ADAM GWON
Most promising musical theatre librettist: MICHELLE ELLIOTT
Judges: STEPHEN FLAHERTY, MICHAEL KORIE, DAVID ZIPPEL
2011-12
Most promising musical theatre lyricist: MARCY HEISLER
Most promising musical theatre librettist: (tie) ANDREW GERLE and MATT SCHATZ
Judges: MARSHALL BRICKMAN, TED CHAPIN, DEBRA MONK
For more information about The Kleban Prize visit
http://newdramatists.org/how/awards-fellowships
