GIRLHOOD the musical is composed by the following individuals
GIRLHOOD is a song-cycle, with different composers for each song;
one…two..or three per song, and over twenty in all.
We are really proud that the songs will vary in so many ways.
See below for details about our song writers.
Marilyn Campbell-Lowe is the recipient of a Joseph Jefferson Award, an LA Backstage Garland Award and a nomination from the LA Drama Critics Circle, for her co-adaptation (w/Curt Columbus) of Dostoyevsky’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, published by Dramatic Publishing. Most recently seen on London’s West End and at Oxford University and in 2019 at Prague Shakespeare Company. Other award winning plays include, THE BEATS and MY OWN STRANGER. New projects include, LIVED THROUGH THIS and SKIN TRIP. Ms. Campbell is a member of the Dramatist Guild of America and Actors Equity Association. For more information visit: www.marilynrcampbell.com.
Dylan MarcAurele is a NYC-based composer and orchestrator. His composing credits include: 57TH NATIONAL MATHLETE SUM-IT (licensed through Theatrical Rights Worldwide), THAT 1770s SHOW (directed by Tony Parise), WHAT THE HELL?! (Harvard University). He has served as a copyist on Broadway, and music director Off-Broadway. He has also been a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. www.dylanmarcaurele.
Annie Pulsipher specializes in writing dark comedies, trying to norm menstruation through ill-timed period jokes, and eating buffalo wings. Her stage and screenwriting has been featured at locations around the country including SLC’s Kensington Theatre, Carnegie Mellon, the Kennedy Center through KCACTF, and the Tribeca Film Festival. Her screenplay, The Glowing Gene, won the Tribeca Film Festival’s 2017 Sloan Grand Jury Prize. Her play, Infinite Canary, is an 2018 O’Neill semi-finalist. She has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon under Rob Handel. www.pulsipherplays.com
Lara Filip is a Chicago native, best known for her work as a singer/actress. Having been featured in National tours of Evita, Joseph and The Wizard of Oz, Filip has also appeared on nearly every stage in the Chicagoland area. Most recently, she appeared in ELF, THE MUSICAL at Paramount Theatre. As a writer, her production of SOPHOCLES ELECTRA (Adaptation/Director) was seen at Bohemian Theatre Ensemble and her original Play, CYRANO: TRANSLATED was produced by Oroboros Theatre Company at The Theatre Building. Her original children’s musicals are regularly performed at schools and libraries and her acclaimed original musical JOHNNY APPLESEED was performed regularly at The Morton Arboretum as an annual event for many years. Her new musical MY FATHER’S DAUGHTERS is currently in workshop development. Lara is also a singer/songwriter. Her album Stop Time is available for download and streaming. She is a graduate of the Chicago Academy of the Arts as a Musical Theatre major and currently serves as Managing Artistic Director for ArranmoreArts
Keaton Wooden is a Chicago-based writer, director, and producer. As a theater artist, he is co-composer of “The Civility of Albert Cashier,” producer the world-premiere adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s classic book and film “Trainspotting USA” and the Chicago remount of Ike Holter’s “Hit the Wall” with the Chicago Commercial Collective. A Rhodes nominee, Wooden studied abroad at the University of Oxford and has travelled the world on humanitarian missions. Films include “Vibrations,” following the Indiana School for the Deaf (Emmy nomination) and “NightLights” (Lifetime Movie Network) and the upcoming film “Landers” with Judy Cairo (“Crazy Heart”).
Holly Reed is the owner and creative director of Reed Creative Group, an award-winning graphic and web design agency. Holly has enjoyed a lifelong career in vocal performance and musical theatre. Her favorite roles include Nancy (OLIVER) and Corrie ten Boom (THE WEAVING). Holly has been featured in video, film and commercials, enjoys acting and vocal coaching, and has directed many musicals. Holly is a Theatre Critic for DFW’s The Column and a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild. She and her husband Kelvin are currently working on a new holiday musical entitled Come Find Me – A Christmas Musical.
Alexa Moster is a proud born and raised Chicagoan studying Music Theatre and Gender Studies at Northwestern University. She has recently fallen in love with songwriting, as she was a contributing songwriter for The 87th Annual Waa-Mu Show, Northwestern’s oldest theatrical tradition of entirely student-written work. She is also Waa-Mu’s rising Community Programming co-director. When she is not dedicating her time to Waa-Mu, she is working as a counselor-in-training for Northwestern’s Chicago Undergraduate Program (CUP), a pre-orientation program dedicated to introducing first-year students to civic engagement, service, and social justice in Chicago. She is also a proud member of THUNK a cappella, Northwestern’s oldest a cappella ensemble. The summers before her first year at Northwestern, Alexa had the privilege of recording backup vocals for Chance The Rapper’s Grammy Award-winning album, Coloring Book, as well as performing with him at Lollapalooza 2017. This summer she will be interning for Underscore Theatre Company in Chicago.
Kelvin Reed has served as a Worship Pastor for over 25 years. He currently serves at Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas. He is an avid pianist, composer and arranger and has produced several recording projects with various choirs. His choral groups have performed in Chicago, New Orleans (with Lenny Kravitz), New York City, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. He has also been music director and accompanist for numerous theatre productions. Kelvin received a Bachelor of Music Education at Carson-Newman College in Tennessee and a Master of Arts in Christian Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Jan Roper has many years of experience in LA as a music director and composer. Her latest original musical, City of Light, was featured in New York’s sheNYC Festival in 2017, winning Best Score. City of Light was also selected for the ASCAP/Dreamworks Workshop with Steven Schwartz in 2015. She has composed and music directed a one-woman show on the Broadway career of Lane Bradbury, the original Dainty Rose in Gypsy, called Let Me Entertain You Again. Shows she has music directed in the last year in Los Angeles: Bat Boy, Sugar, deLEARious, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Next to Normal.
Andy Roninson is the recipient of: BMI Harrington Award, Robert B. Sherman Scholarship. 2017 Larson Finalist. 2017 Mercer Project. 2015 and 2018 Prospect Theater Company’s Musical Theater Lab. Created/co-wrote the all-original ten-minute musical podcast TAKE A TEN, featuring full orchestrations and Broadway performers like Laura Osnes, George Salazar, Nick Blaemire, etc. Episodes have won awards and been produced live around the world. Notable episodes: “Evelyn Shaffer” (Winner Samuel French OOBSP Festival, City Theater National Award for Short Playwriting), “The Answering Machine” (Winner Best Musical at TNNY’s Sound Bites Festival), “The Hipster Sister” (five productions in 2018). For more, visit AndyRoninson.com
Julie Weiner (Lyricist) Julie studied musical theatre at The Einhorn School for the Performing Arts in New York City (a division of Primary Stages) under Adam Gwon (“Ordinary Days”, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”) and Kate Kerrigan (“The Unauthorized Biography of Samantha Brown”), and at New Musicals Inc. (“NMI”) in Los Angeles. Julie completed NMI’s two-year curriculum and co-wrote the original 15-minute musical, “Bank Shot” which was produced at The Colony Theatre in 2012. “Bank Shot” was also selected for the 2013 Digital Natives Festival at UC Irvine, and is published and available for licensing. Julie was chosen to participate in the 2015 ASCAP NYMF Musical Theater Songwriting Workshop taught by Anna Jacobs, culminating in a Master Class critique of her work by composer/lyricist Lawrence O’Keefe. Along with Gabrielle Wagner and Jan Roper, Julie has co-written the full-length musical “City of Light”, which has received numerous accolades, and was selected for the 2015 ASCAP Dreamworks Workshop with Stephen Schwartz, and the 2017 SheNYC Arts Theater festival. Julie has an extensive entertainment and technology background, and currently works as a Director of Development for the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Alec Steinhorn is an writer/music director/actor currently in his sophomore theatre and music composition major at Northwestern University. A writer with an emphasis on composition, he has written and directed a musical, as well as scored multiple new plays. Alec currently serves as writing coordinator of the Waa-Mu show, America’s largest student-written musical, and is credited on 17 songs between this year and last year’s shows. In addition, Alec has music directed numerous shows on campus, currently serves as co-musical director of the Bix, Northwestern’s premiere musical improv group, and is an active ensemble member of TBD, Northwestern’s premiere Neo-Futurist-inspired theatre troupe.
Paris the WeirdKid is a composer/lyricist from Encino, CA. His career began at 15 on Hollywood Records, Disney as a singer/songwriter. After leaving Hollywood Records, Paris became the musical theme writer & co-host for B InTune TV, which aired on the UPN Network, ABC and Fox. In recent years, he worked on The Kicker; the online platform of Saturday Night Live’s creator Lorne Michaels, where he collaborated on the musical sketch “Hold Em Back” with SNL star Keenan Thompson. Paris also composed the music & lyrics for the musicals, Mr. Chickee’s Funny Money and Last Stop On Market Street.
Sasha Bartol is a New York based musical theatre composer, music director and accompanist. Recent music direction credits include Next to Normal, Edges, Company (USC MTR). Recent music assistant/assistant music director credits include Play Like a Winner, Numbers Nerds (Playwrights Horizons). As a composer, she is currently working on a new musical titled Something Ever After with collaborator Jeffrey Morse. She recently graduated with honors from the University of Southern California where she studied music composition and musical theatre. She worked under the tutelage of Morten Lauridsen, Andrew Norman, Vicki Lewis, Ted Hearne, Frank Ticheli and John Rubinstein.
Joan Bauer is a NY Times Best-selling author, screenwriter, songwriter, and speaker who has won numerous awards for her thirteen novels for young readers — among them: the Newbery Honor Medal, the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award, three Christopher Awards, the LA Times Book Prize, the Chicago Tribune Young adult Literary Prize, and the Golden Kite Award of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Joan’s first musical theater project was adapting her novel Squashed for the stage. With Jeff Bouthiette, she co-wrote music and lyrics for the production. Squashed had it’s first staged readings at the Refuge Theater in Chicago. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband Evan.
Alex Petti is a composer/lyricist from Massachusetts who grew up as a pop punk rocker. Though his dreams of headlining Warped Tour have ended, the energy of the genre still infuses his music. He studied classical music composition in college at Carnegie Mellon University and is now hustling towards becoming a full time theater singer-songwriter in New York City. His current full-length theater works include The Trouble With Dead Boyfriends, which will be making its NYC Debut at the Connelly Theater in July, and Zeroes And Ones, an autobiographical punk musical that is in development. Visit alexpetti.com
Deborah Berenson is a London-born writer and singer, based in NY. She is a lyricist in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and is delighted to be a part of the creative team for GIRLHOOD! Deborah’s work has been performed in London and New York, including a sold-out run at the NY Fringe Festival. Her original one-act musical was selected for the Fringe Encores Series at Baruch Performing Arts Center. Deborah’s comedy and parody writing was short-listed for the UK Musical Comedy Awards, and she can also write an excellent complaint letter.
Jordan Knitzer is a sophomore theater major from New York City attending Northwestern University. He is a composer/lyricist, hoping to write for musical theatre for the rest of his life. He is currently the head writer for the 87th Annual Waa-Mu Show at Northwestern University titled “Manhattan Miracle”. Jordan has written, along with other collaborators, seven songs in Manhattan Miracle. The Waa-Mu Show is Northwestern University’s own original musical, written, performed, and presented by an aggregate of over 200 Northwestern students. He became involved with Waa-Mu in freshman year, writing for The Waa-Mu Writer’s Room Showcase and writing five songs in The 86th Annual Waa-Mu Show Beyond Belief: A Superhero Story. He participated in a 40 hour musical challenge in high school, writing the lyrics for a fifteen minute musical. Jordan is also an actor and producer of New Work on Northwestern’s campus. He is also a member of the Jewish Theatre Ensemble as Special Events Chair.
Tia DeShazor is an actor and writer. Onstage she plays barrier-breaking leading ladies (Felicia in Memphis, Sarah in Ragtime and Johanna u/s in Sweeney Todd), and these strong female voices are reflected in her writing. She is a lyricist in the first year of the BMI- Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, her 10 minute musical The Rocket Thrower was featured in Prospect Theater’s Musical Theatre lab. She’s moving the inclusion conversation forward as the co-Founder of BOLD, on the board of the Women in the Arts and Media Coalition and the AEA committee for EEO and Diversity. Visit Tiadeshazor.com
Jeff Bouthiette is a Chicago-based songwriter, playwright, actor, and director; and is currently the Head of the Music Program at the Second City Training Center. Most recently, his original piece Picture It! A Golden Girls Musical (co-written with Jay Steigmann) played at MCL, and his song cycle Planted, about the modern lives of gay men, was featured at the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival. He also co-wrote Squashed: The Musical with Joan Bauer, based on her award-winning YA novel. In addition, he’s written music and lyrics for hundreds of sketch shows in his work at Second City.
Julie Dunlap is a freelance writer and composer in spite of her Human Biology degree from the University of Kansas. She co-wrote the musical comedy MOTHERFREAKINGHOOD! (regional premiere in Kansas City, MO 2015, New York Musical Festival 2017) and has worked as a weekly humor columnist and local talk show host in Lawrence, KS, where she lives with her husband and four kids (except for the two in college). She is excited to join the writing team for GIRLHOOD and dedicates this song to her mother and her three teenage daughters.
Sara Stotts (Music, Lyrics) co-wrote the musical comedy MOTHERFREAKINGHOOD! (regional premiere in Kansas City, MO 2015, New York Musical Festival, 2017). A lifelong composer and graduate of the University of Kansas and Northwestern University, Sara honed her comedy skills at Chicago’s Annoyance Theater and The Second City and sang female lead in the funk/blues band Chubby Nothin’ and The Bone. When she’s not entertaining with musical comedy, she owns and is the director of physical therapy at Millennium Wellness Group, a rehabilitation center in downtown Chicago. The middle sister and mother of two, Sara is excited to set her girlhood experiences to music.
Kathleen Gibson (Music, Lyrics) is a Chicago based artist. Her song “None of My Business” was featured at the Chicago Humanities Festival. “Gimme That Fat Cat,” a song she wrote for Lauren Paris who used it to adopt an internet famous overweight cat, recently went viral. The song was featured in People Magazine, Buzzfeed, Vice, and more. This year she also had the pleasure of collaborating and performing with Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider on their live podcast at the Onion Comedy Festival. Kathleen works at Second City as a music director, is an AEA actress, and improviser with Baby Wants Candy. You can find more on her YouTube Channel “Kathleen Sings Stuff.”
Lori Maier (Music, Lyrics) has extensive vocal experience as a recording artist, commercial session singer and live performer, and her songwriting has earned her Billboard Magazine’s New Songwriter of the Year Award. She served as the director of DePaul University’s Jazz Vocal program for 7 years, is a vocal clinician for the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (the GRAMMYS) with emphasis on jazz and contemporary vocal instruction, and is currently on the voice faculty at Pepperdine University where she has taught voice for 20 years. Lori is the founder and Executive Director of Chick Singer Night, an international performance network for female artists (www.chicksingernight.com).
Aaron Latina (Music) is a professional composer, orchestrator and music director in film, musicals, commercial projects and movie trailers. Aaron’s music and orchestrations have appeared in numerous films and documentaries, including the feature-length film “The Distance Between Us” the 2014 winner for Best Drama at the International Film Festival. Aaron has orchestrated and arranged many projects for the stage and commercial studio projects. He is the orchestrator and music director of “South Pass,” an original musical that debuted summer of 2013. And he is also the vocal arranger, orchestrator and music director for multiple musical projects based in LA, NYC, Nashville, Austin and the UK.
Gabriella Hirsch (Music, Lyrics) is a Chicago-based writer and performer. A graduate of the University of Miami, she is a classically trained pianist and an enthusiastic guitar player and singer. Written with Sarah Frasco, her musical Lucky: A Musical was featured in the 2019 Chicago Musical Theater Festival. Gaby wrote music and lyrics, produced, music directed, and performed in Lucky, which won “Best Lyrics,” “Most Promising Musical,” and “Cast Having the Most Fun.” She has trained in comedy at the iO Theater and Second City, with her work featured in the Mary Scruggs Works By Women Festival at Second City. She is a member of the Barrel of Monkeys Theater Company, a Teaching Artist at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and the Program Coordinator of Girls Rock! Chicago. She loves beaches, her family, and Prince.