March 6 - Stephen Schwartz

Image courtesy stephenschwartz.com

On this day, in 1948, Stephen Lawrence Schwartz was born in New York, New York. Stephen studied piano and composition at Juilliard while taking regular classes at Mineola High School on Long Island. While a student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he wrote an early version of Pippin that was performed by the school's student run theater group, Scotch'n'Soda. He graduated in 1968, returned to New York City and began a career as a producer for RCA Records. It turned out to not be a terribly long career.

In 1970, Stephen was asked to be the musical director for America's first rock opera, The Survival of St. Joan (it's also America's first medieval rock opera if you're keeping track of that sort of thing and, before you ask, Tommy was British). Starring F. Murray Abraham and the band Smoke Rise, St. Joan had 16 off-Broadway performances before releasing an album, which Steven produced. The following year, he was hired to write new music and lyrics for the quirky retelling of the life of Jesus, Godspell, which had started life as the thesis of another Carnegie Mellon student, John-Michael Tebelak. In 1972, a new version of Pippin made it's Broadway debut, with the same concept as his college version but entirely different songs. Two years later, Stephen wrote the music and lyrics for The Magic Show. At the age of 26, he had three hit shows running simultaneously on Broadway. Not bad for a kid from Long Island (or anywhere else) if you ask me.

Image copyright Disney

In 1978, Stephen added director to the hats he wears with the musical Working, based on the book by Studs Terkel. His efforts earned him a Drama Desk award and the position of co-director for the television version. Stephen then took a break during the Eighties. He only wrote a children's book called The Perfect Peach, the music and lyrics for the one act children's musical Captain Louie, music for the revue Personals and lyrics for the musical Rags. He clearly wasn't applying himself during the me decade.

Image copyright Disney

Stephen became part of the Disney family in 1995 when he wrote the lyrics to Alan Menken's music for Pocahontas. It was the first Disney movie that Alan would work on without any input from his long time collaborator Howard Ashman. It worked out. Colors of the Wind won the pair an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Grammy. Stephan and Alan paired together again for The Hunchback of Notre Dame a year later.

In 2000, Stephan was tapped as composer and lyricist for a musical version of Pinocchio called Geppetto that aired on The Wonderful World of Disney. A stage version of Geppetto was then created (and given a new cumbersome name, Disney's My Son Pinocchio: Geppetto's Musical Tale) which of course comes with a Jr. version. Stephen re-teamed with Alan for 2007's Enchanted, three songs of which earned Oscar nominations. His last contribution (so far) to Disneyana is the theme song for the television show Johnny and the Sprites, which aired on the Disney Channel starting in 2005.

Outside of Disney, Stephen wrote music and lyrics for the Dreamwork's production The Prince of Egypt, picking up another Oscar for When You Believe. He also was composer and lyricist on another Broadway show you might have heard of, Wicked, which won three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards and a Grammy. Wicked also pushed Stephen into an elite group: he is one of only two composers to have three Broadway shows run for more than 1,500 performances (the other is Jerry Herman of Hello, Dolly! fame).

In recent years, Stephen has managed to keep himself busy. He's created a stage version of The Prince of Egypt, composed three original shows for Princess Cruise Lines and was rumored to be writing songs for a sequel to Enchanted. His next definite project, slated to come out in 2021, is a film version of Wicked.