Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Schwartz was born in New York City, New York, United States on March 6th, 1948 and is the Composer. At the age of 76, Stephen Schwartz biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Stephen Lawrence Schwartz (born March 6, 1948) is an American musical theatre lyricist and composer.
Schwartz has written such hit musicals as Godspell (1971), Pippin (1972), and Wicked (2003).
He has written lyrics to a number of hit films, including Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996; music and lyrics), and Enchanted (2007).
Schwartz has been nominated for six Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and three Academy Awards for Outstanding Lyrics, and has been nominated for six Tony Awards.
He received the 2015 Isabelle Stevenson Award, a special Tony Award, for his dedication to serving artists and fostering new talent.
Early life and education
Schwartz was born in New York City to Sheila Lorna (née Siegel), a teacher, and Stanley Leonard Schwartz, a businessman. He grew up in Nassau County, New York's Williston Park neighborhood, where he graduated from Mineola High School in 1964. Schwartz created and directed an early version of Pippin (entitled Pippin, Pippin) with the student-run theatre group Scotch'n'Soda while attending Carnegie Mellon University. Schwartz graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama.
Personal life
On June 6, 1969, Schwartz married Carole Piasecki. Jessica and Scott have two children.
Schwartz was elected president of the Dramatist Guild of America in 2009, succeeding John Weidman; he resigned in 2014, but Doug Wright took over.
Early career
Schwartz began working as a producer for RCA Records upon returning to New York City, but soon after, he began to work in Broadway theatre. He was asked to be the musical director of the first American rock opera, The Life of St. Joan. He was credited as the producer of the double album of the soundtrack for the progressive rock band Smoke Rise on Paramount Records. His first big credit was the title song for the play Butterflies Are Free; the song was later used in the film version as well.
He wrote music and lyrics for Godspell in 1971, which received several honors, including two Grammys. He ordered Paul Shaffer to be the musical director for this Toronto musical's 1972 revival, thus starting Shaffer's career. In collaboration with Leonard Bernstein on Bernstein's Mass, the Godspell was followed by the English-language texts, which opened the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. The long-running Pippin premiered on Broadway in 1972. While studying in college, Schwartz began writing songs for Pippin, but none of the songs from the college version made it to Broadway. Both Pippin and Godspell are still being made.
Schwartz wrote music and lyrics for The Magic Show, which attracted just under 2,000 performances two years after Pippin debuted. Schwartz had three smash hit musicals playing in New York simultaneously by mid-1974, aged 26. The Baker's Wife, which closed down before going to Broadway in 1976, was next, with the music and lyrics. However, the cast album continued to gain cult status, which culminated in several subsequent productions, including a London performance directed by Trevor Nunn in 1990 and another at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey in 2005.
Schwartz' next Broadway project, which he adapted and directed, winning the Drama Desk Award as best director and for which he wrote four songs, was a musical version of Studs Terkel's Working, which he adapted and directed. He also co-directed the television series, which was also part of the PBS American Playhouse collection. Schwartz wrote The Perfect Peach, a children's book written in 1977. Schwartz wrote songs for a one-act musical for children, The Trip, which 20 years later was reimagined, extended, and produced as Captain Louie. He wrote music for three of the Off-Broadway revue Personals' songs, as well as lyrics to Charles Strouse's musical Rags.
Later career
Schwartz composed the music and lyrics for the musical Children of Eden in 1991. He then began film, coworking with composer Alan Menken on the score for the Disney animated films Pocahontas (1995), for which he received two Academy Awards and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). He produced songs for DreamWorks' first animated film, The Prince of Egypt (1998), winning another Academy Award for the song "When You Believe." He wrote music and lyrics for Geppetto, the original television musical, seen on The Wonderful World of Disney. This work was first performed in June 2006 at The Coterie Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, and was titled Geppetto and Son, and is now known as Disney's My Son Pinocchio Geppetto's Musical Tale. On July 17, 2009, Geppetto & Son, Jr., a young talent, had its world premiere at the Lyric Theatre in Stuart, Florida. The StarStruck Performing Arts Center produced it.
Schwartz returned to Broadway in 2003 as composer and lyricist for Wicked, a Western play that tells the tale of the Oz characters from the point of view of the witches. Schwartz received a Grammy Award for his work as composer and lyricist and producer of Wicked's cast recording. Schwartz, one of four composers (the other three being Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jerry Herman, and Richard Rodgers), had three shows last on Broadway on March 23, 2006, making him one of four composers (the other two being Pippin and The Magic Show). Schwartz joined Jerry Herman as one of only two composer/lyricists to have three shows run longer than 1,500 on Broadway in 2007.
Wicked, Schwartz performed music and lyrics for a new musical that was produced to celebrate Hans Christian Andersen's centennial. In the fall of 2005, the performance, titled Mit Eventyr or "My Fairytale," opened at the Gladsaxe Theatre in Copenhagen. My Fairytale's American premiere took place in the summer of 2011 at the PCPA Theatrefest of California, and was directed by the composer's son Scott Schwartz.
Schwartz returned to Hollywood in 2007 and wrote lyrics for the hit Disney film Enchanted, once more collaborating with Menken. Three songs from the film "Happy Working Song," "That's How You Know," and "So Close" have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He has written the theme song for Johnny and the Sprites, starring John Tartaglia. Scott Schwartz's adaptation of Willa Cather's My ntonia is a recent venture, and incidental music for his son.
Schwartz had reached out to Tim Dang, the long-serving artistic director of Los Angeles-based Asian-Pacific Islander theater company East West Players, on several occasions prior to 2008. This collaboration resulted in the creation of a new version of Pippin, which was both physically inspired by Japanese anime and musically inspired by hip-hop. The production was a record-breaking success, and it remained the highest grossing production in EWP's history for a decade before being dethroned by Allegiance in 2018.
Carol de Giere's first ever Schwartz biography titled Defying Gravity was published in 2008. The book is a comprehensive look at his work and life, as well as sections on how to write for the musical theatre.
Schwartz, a pop star, collaborated with John Ondrasik on two songs for Fighting album Slice, including "Above the Timberline," on the five. Based on his daughter's fascination with, as well as repeated attendance at the musical Wicked performances, Ondrasik became familiar with Schwartz.
In September 2011, the Northlight Theatre in Chicago premiered Schwartz's latest musical, Snapshots, which featured music and lyrics by Schwartz, book by David Stern, and was directed by Ken Sawyer. "Some of the finest-loved songs was woven with some of the more rare lesser-known gems of (the) renowned Broadway composer" mingled with "some of the best-loved songs" with some of the more well-known lesser known gems of (the) renowned Broadway composer.
The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus performed "Testimony," composed by Schwartz and lyrics taken from Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project's submissions on March 22, 2012.
Princess Cruises announced in March 2015 that they would collaborate with Schwartz for the production of four shows that would have been more than three years. The first will be a magic themed review of Schwartz's music, titled Magic To Do, which also includes one new song written for the occasion.
Schwartz will write the lyrics for a live-action version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame as well as a sequel to Enchanted, Disenchanted. Schwartz will also write the songs for Bill Condon's Marley, a musical film based on A Christmas Carol.
Schwartz participated in a fund-raising video titled Saturday Night Seder that featured an "all-star" cast of actors, composers, and religious figures who were broadcasting from their home computers and cellphones around the world in response to the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Through stories, song, comedies, and memories, Passover's story was told, as well as raising funds for the CDC Foundation.