ABOUT LYNN AHRENS AND STEPHEN FLAHERTY
Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty won the Tony Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards and received two Grammy nominations for their score of the Broadway musical Ragtime. They also garnered two Academy Award nominations and two Golden Globe nominations for the songs and score of Twentieth Century Fox's animated feature film, Anastasia (Gold Record and Number One Song.) They are co-creators of the Broadway musicals Once On This Island (eight Tony Award nominations, London’s Olivier Award for Best Musical) and Seussical (Grammy and Drama Desk nominations. One of the most frequently performed show in America.)
Other Broadway and off-Broadway credits include My Favorite Year,A Man of No Importance (Outer Critics Circle Award, Best Musical), Dessa Rose (winner, 2005 Audelco Award for Best Musical, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations), Lucky Stiff (Helen Hayes Award, Best Musical), Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life and The Glorious Ones (five Drama Desk nominations including Best Musical.)
Individually, Ms. Ahrens’ credits include: co-book and lyrics for A Christmas Carol (ten years at Madison Square Garden); teleplay adaptation of A Christmas Carol (NBC/Hallmark Entertainment Special); mainstay songwriter/singer for Schoolhouse Rock and many other network shows. Emmy Award and four Emmy nominations.
Mr. Flaherty’s credits include: concert premieres at the Hollywood Bowl and Boston's Symphony Hall; commissions from the Guggenheim Museum, Carnegie Hall and Symphony Space; incidental music for Neil Simon's Proposals on Broadway; musical score for Loving Repeating: A Musical Of Gertrude Stein (Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Musical.)
Ahrens and Flaherty are members of the Dramatists Guild of America, ASCAP, NARAS, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They co-chair the Dramatists Guild Fellows program for emerging writers.
www.ahrensandflaherty.com
Moderator: Michael Kerker
Michael A. Kerker has been Director of Musical Theatre for ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) since 1990. In addition to coordinating ASCAP’s Musical Theatre Workshop in New York (which is led by composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz), he works with Disney Theatricals to produce the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles (also led by Stephen Schwartz). Together with Michael Feinstein, Kerker produces a regular series of concerts at Carnegie Hall highlighting the catalogue of both legendary and contemporary songwriters.
Michael is also producing a regular series of interview programs entitled "Broadway: Up Close and Personal" for the Kennedy Center. Michael’s onstage conversations with some of America's most prominent songwriters have included evenings with Jerry Herman, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Charles Strouse, Sheldon Harnick and Stephen Schwartz.
Michael produces an annual songwriter’s cabaret as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Michael produced the ASCAP Foundation Jerry Herman Legacy Program, which is a series of seminars, master classes and concerts featuring the legendary composer/lyricist. The program has been presented nationwide in such cities as Chicago, Sundance, San Francisco, Savannah, Miami and Pittsburgh.
Michael is proud to be a member of the Boards of the American Theatre Wing, the Johnny Mercer Foundation and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.