Laurence Holzman & Felicia Needleman (Book & Lyrics)
Laurence Holzman & Felicia Needleman (Book & Lyrics) are the winners of the prestigious 2006 Kleban Award for the most promising musical theatre librettists. They have been collaborating on musicals for many years, after first meeting in Modern Drama class at Columbia College. Their original holiday musical hit, That Time of the Year, had its off-Broadway premiere at the York Theatre in December 2006 and is now being licensed by Theatrical Rights Worldwide. The Original Cast Recording of that show is due out soon on JAY Records and several songs have been recorded on the albums, Carols for a Cure Volumes 5 and 6, Susan Egan: Winter Tracks and The North Coast Men’s Chorus: Sugar Plum Fairies. The song ”Little Colored Lights” was performed by Broadway star Kelli O’Hara on the CBS-TV special, Holiday in Bryant Park. A staged reading of their other new musical, The Jerusalem Syndrome, was presented at the York Theatre as part of its Developmental Reading Series in October 2007. Holzman and Needleman’s musical Suddenly Hope was presented in 2003 at the Denver Civic Theatre. Their first show, a musical version of the 1942 film I Married a Witch, was presented in the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop in 1995, and its title song earned them ASCAP’s first-ever Sammy Cahn Award for Outstanding Lyricists. Mr. Holzman & Ms. Needleman’s children’s song, ”Everyone Can La-La-La-La-La” (with music by David Grover) has been performed in concerts all across the U.S., and is featured on David Grover & the Big Bear Band’s album, Listen to the Music Band. Mr. Holzman and Ms. Needleman are both alumni of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and members of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild.
Benjamin Rosenbluth (Music)
Benjamin Rosenbluth (Music) had his passion for musical theatre ignited when, at the age of 10, he had the opportunity to appear onstage alongside Marvin Hamlisch. He has since studied music composition with Charles Wuorinen at Rutgers and with Milton Babbitt at Juilliard, where he earned a Masters in Music. He also studied jazz piano with Kenny Baron while at Rutgers, and composed for the stage under the tutelage of John Corigliano while at Juilliard. He composed songs and incidental music for the Juilliard production of As You Like It (directed by John Rando) and the Juilliard Alumni production of Herculina (directed by Christopher Durang). His ballet, Six, was performed as part of the Composers and Choreographers series at Lincoln Center. He is an alumnus of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Past musical theatre works include Masada (Oscar E. Moore and Michael Amen, book and lyrics) at the York Theatre, and The Necklace (Sandra Ben-Dor, book and lyrics) at the West Bank Cafe Theatre. His work with Laurence Holzman and Felicia Needleman has been featured in the New Voices Concerts at Symphony Space (performed by Rebecca Luker & Judy Blazer). Benjamin also earned an MD at Harvard Medical School and did postgraduate training in Radiation Oncology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He is currently a practicing radiation oncologist at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Annette Jolles (Director)
Annette Jolles (Director) has created a diverse body of work as a producer, director, and writer for stage and television. Since 1992, she has produced and directed for BARD Entertainment, a television production company specializing in live multi-camera events and entertainment specials, earning an Emmy Award as producer of the 9/11 Memorial from Ground Zero. As a founding partner of KTW Productions, dedicated to theatrical works relevant to the Jewish experience, she produced, co-wrote and directed the plays Keeping the Word and The Handshake, which toured nationwide. As resident director/choreographer for The Little Orchestra Society, she staged 16 seasons of their acclaimed Lolli-Pops Series for young children, as well as productions of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Berezowsky’s Babar the Elephant, and Peter and the Wolf, all at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center. With a focus on developing new works for the theatre, Ms. Jolles’ directed and choreographed Little by Little at the York Theatre Company and Miami’s Coconut Grove Playhouse, Big Red Sun for the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop and Theatreworks Palo Alto’s New Works Festival, and Suddenly Hope at the Denver Civic Theater, the Garfield Theater in La Jolla, CA and the Rich Forum Theater in Stamford, CT. With collaborators Laurence Holzman and Felicia Needleman, in addition to Suddenly Hope, she directed the Off-Broadway premiere of That Time of the Year and all developmental readings of their new shows Wallenberg and The Jerusalem Syndrome. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University, where she currently teaches musical theater performance and direction.
