playbill vip

TOM KITT (Music)

Tom received two Tony Awards in 2009 for Next to Normal (Best New Score and Best Orchestration), as well as the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama which he shares with lyricist Brian Yorkey. Next to Normal also received the 2009 Frederick Loewe Award for Best New Score. He graduated from Columbia College in New York in 1996, leaving with a degree in economics and a promising partnership with fellow student Brian Yorkey. Kitt’s credits as a composer include the music in High Fidelity (Broadway), From Up Here (Manhattan Theatre Club), and The Retributionists (Playwrights Horizons) as well as new orchestrations for the CTG/DeafWest production of Pippin and numerous original songs for film and television as the leader of the Tom Kitt Band. His show credits as a musical director, conductor, and arranger on Broadway and Off-Broadway include Green Day’s American Idiot, Jason Robert Brown’s 13, Hair, Laugh Whore, Urban Cowboy, and Debbie Does Dallas, and his string arrangements were featured on Green Day’s Grammy-winning album, 21st Century Breakdown.

BRIAN YORKEY (Book and Lyrics)

Brian received the 2009 Tony Award for Best Score and was also nominated for Best Book of a Musical for his work on Next to Normal, for which he also became the co-recipient of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Score. Theatre credits include Making Tracks, which has played Off-Broadway and regionally, the musical adaptation of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet, and the country musical Play It By Heart. For seven years he was Associate Artistic Director at Village Theatre in Issaquah, Washington, one of the leading producers of new musicals in the United States. Recently, Yorkey’s latest work with Next to Normal collaborator Tom Kitt, In Your Eyes, workshopped at the Village Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals in August, 2010, and he is currently working on a musical theatre piece with singing legend Sting based on the text of the singer’s concept album The Soul Cages. Yorkey has directed Off-Broadway and regionally, and has worked extensively in TV and film where his credits include Time After Time, in development with Universal Studios, Love Undercover, Fashion Show, Paramount, and Chase. He is a graduate of Columbia College, and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and WGA.