Wonderful Town

Composer

Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990) was a world-renowned musician, conductor and composer throughout his entire adult life. He was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic and conducted the world’s major orchestras, recording hundreds of these performances. His books and the televised Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic established him as a leading educator. His compositions include Jeremiah,The Age of Anxiety, Kaddish, Serenade, Five Anniversaries, Mass, Chichester Psalms,Slava!, Songfest, Divertimento for Orchestra, Missa Brevis, Arias and Barcarolles,Concerto for Orchestra and A Quiet Place. Bernstein composed for the Broadway musical stage, including On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide and the immensely popular West Side Story. In addition to the West Side Story collaboration, Bernstein worked with choreographer Jerome Robbins on three major ballets: Fancy Free, Facsimile and Dybbuk. Bernstein was the recipient of many honors, including the Tony Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Theater, 11 Emmy Awards, the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and the Kennedy Center Honors.

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Director

MARY ZIMMERMAN is the recipient of a 1998 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play and numerous Jeff Awards (including Best Production and Best Direction). She is an Artistic Associate of Goodman Theatre, a member of Lookingglass Theatre Company and a professor of performance studies at Northwestern University. Zimmerman has adapted and directed  Metamorphoses, which appeared on Broadway and at Lookingglass Theatre Company, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum and Second Stage Theatre; The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci at the Goodman, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Second Stage Theatre; Journey to the West at the Goodman, the Huntington Theatre Company and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; The Odyssey at Lookingglass Theatre Company, the Goodman, McCarter Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre; Mirror of the Invisible World and Silk, both at the Goodman; Arabian Nights at Lookingglass Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Argonautika at Lookingglass Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre Company and McCarter Theatre; The Secret in the Wings at Lookingglass Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, McCarter Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre; Eleven Rooms of Proust at Lookingglass Theatre Company and About Face Theatre (co-produced by the Goodman); a new opera with Philip Glass, Galileo Galilei, at the Goodman, The Barbican in London and Brooklyn Academy of Music; Candide  at the Goodman, the Shakespeare Theatre Company and the Huntington Theatre Company; The Jungle Book at the Goodman and Huntington Theatre Company and The White Snake at the Goodman, McCarter Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in China. In addition, Ms. Zimmerman has directed Shakespeare’s Pericles and All’s Well That Ends Well at the Goodman and Henry VIII and Measure for Measure at New York Theater Festival’s Shakespeare in the Park. She made her Metropolitan Opera directorial debut in 2007 with Lucia di Lammermoor, which she also directed at La Scala in Milan in 2014. Subsequent Met productions include Armida and La Sonnambula.

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Lyrics

BETTY COMDEN and ADOLPH GREEN In a partnership spanning nearly 60 years, Comden & Green received Tony Awards for their lyrics and/or librettos for Applause,Wonderful Town, Hallelujah Baby!, On The Twentieth Century and The Will Rogers Follies. Other Broadway credits include On the Town, Peter Pan, Bells Are Ringing, Do Re Mi, Subways Are For Sleeping and A Doll’s Life. They wrote the screenplays and/or lyrics for the motion pictures Good News, On the Town, Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon,It’s Always Fair Weather (Academy Award nomination) and Auntie Mame, among others. They were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and received the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 1991. Comden appeared in the films Garbo Talks and Slaves of New York, and authored a collection of essays published under the title Off Stage. She is survived by her daughter, Susanna Kyle. Green appeared in the films Simon, My Favorite Year, Lily In Love, I Want To Go Home and The Substance of Fire, and as Dr. Pangloss in the television broadcast of Candide, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. He is survived by his wife, Phyllis Newman, and their children, Adam and Amanda.

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Authors

JOSEPH A. FIELDS and JEROME CHODROV (Authors) wrote the hit Broadway play My Sister Eileen, which ran for three years from 1940 to 1943. The duo later collaborated on the play’s musical adaptation Wonderful Town, which won them the 1953 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Additional joint Broadway credits include the plays Schoolhouse on the Lot, Junior Miss, The French Touch, Anniversary Waltz and The Ponder Heart. Fields also wrote the plays The Doughgirls, I Gotta Get Out, The Desk Set, The Tunnel of Love and the book of the musical Gentleman Prefer Blondes. Chodrov’s works include A Talent for Murder, 3 Bags Full and the book of the musical I Had a Ball. He also directed Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole, Christine and The Gazebo. 

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