Original Creative Team

Mary Rodgers (1931-2014). An accomplished author, screenwriter and composer, Mary Rodgers' earliest professional credits included serving as Assistant to the Producer of Leonard Bernstein's New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts.

Her Broadway career began as composer of the 1959 musical Once Upon A Mattress starring Carol Burnett, later broadcast to great success on network television and revived repeatedly. More than 400 productions of Once Upon A Mattress are presented annually in the U.S. and Canada and a 1997 Broadway production starring Sarah Jessica Parker earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical Revival. ABC-TV presented a new version of Once Upon A Mattress on The Wonderful World of Disney in late 2005 (subsequently released on DVD), once again starring Carol Burnett, this time as the wicked Queen Aggravain, with Tracy Ullman as Princess Winnifred.

Ms. Rodgers had been a popular author of fiction for young people ever since her first book was released in 1972: Freaky Friday received the first prize at the Book World Spring Book Festival Awards, The Christopher Award, and was cited on the ALA Notable Book List. In 1977 Disney Studios adapted Freaky Friday into a movie, with screenplay by Rodgers, and starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster; a remake was broadcast on the ABC television network in 1995 and a musical version, by Rodgers and John Forster, was presented by Theatreworks/USA in 1991; and a new film remake, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, was released by Walt Disney Pictures in Summer 2003.

As a composer, her additional theatre credits include Hot Spot starring Judy Holliday, The Mad Show, Working, and The Griffin and the Minor Canon. Her television credits include Once Upon a Mattress, Three to Make Music (written with her sister Linda and starring Mary Martin), Feathertop, and Marlo Thomas' Free to Be...You and Me. She also composed the scores for several productions featuring the legendary Bil Baird Marionettes, including Davy Jones’ Locker and Pinocchio, and several musicals for Theatreworks/USA. Her musicals have been celebrated in a revue, Hey, Love.

Additional authorship credits include The Rotten Book, A Billion for Boris (The Christopher Award; ALA Notable Book List), Summer Switch and the screenplay for Disney Studios, The Devil and Max Devlin.

The daughter of composer Richard Rodgers and Dorothy Rodgers, Mary collaborated with her mother on several projects, including: the 1970 book A Word to the Wives; a nationally syndicated radio program of the same title; and “Of Two Minds,” a monthly column for McCall's Magazine. She also made several concert appearances with William Hammerstein, son of the celebrated lyricist, in an evening of reminiscences, anecdotes and musical selections celebrating their fathers' collaboration. For many years, Mary Rodgers served as the Rodgers family representative to The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization.

At the time of her death, Mary Rodgers was Chairman Emeritus and served on the Board of the Juilliard School. She served on the boards of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival and the Dramatists Guild Council.

In private life she was married to the late Henry Guettel, former Executive Director of the Theatre Development Fund (TDF); at the time of her death she was survived by her sister, Linda Rodgers Emory, five children, and seven grandchildren and step-grandchildren.

Marshall Barer (1923-1998) could have been labeled eclectic, mercurial, peripatetic, or simply promiscuous, but it mattered not to him, who over the years mated his lyrics to the melodies of Michele Brourman, Hoagy Carmichael, Gordon Connell, J. Fred Coots, Vernon Duke, Duke Ellington, Michael Feinstein, Dean Fuller, Ronny Graham, Fred Hellerman, Burton Lane, Michel Legrand, Michael Leonard, Hugh Martin, Anita Nye, Lance Ong, Norman Paris, Mary Rodgers, the Davids (Raksin, Ross, Shire), William Roy, Bruce Scott, Ralph Strain, Joseph Thalken, Kurt Weill and Alec Wilder—not to mention his own. While vouchsafing no “actual-all-time-number-one-favorite” he often confessed that, when asked, he found himself “leaning toward” Ms. Rodgers, with whom he wrote Once Upon A Mattress (1959) “several times.”

Jay Thompson (1927-2014) co-wrote the book for Once Upon A Mattress and wrote the book, music and lyrics for the opera The Bible Salesman, as well as the one-act musical The Oldest Trick in the World. He also wrote Pocketful of Wry, a musical revue. In addition to composing words and music for the song "Jimmy," which was sung by Julie Andrews in the film Thoroughly Modern Millie, Thompson has created special material for Carol Channing, Dorothy Loudon, Imogene Coca and other funny ladies. As a director, he worked on Once Upon A Mattress, Born Yesterday, Pocketful Of Wry, Annie, Forum, Sweet Charity, Steel Magnolias, Laughing Matter and The Oldest Trick In The World.

Dean Fuller (1922-2017) was a composer, playwright, conductor, sailor, pilot, novelist and teacher. B.A. music and drama, Yale University. Alumnus Tamiment Playhouse, last of the Borscht Belt boot camps for revue writers, lyricists and composers. He co-wrote the book for Once Upon A Mattress, contributed music (with lyrics by Marshall Barer) to the revues Once Over Lightly (Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, Sono Osato), New Faces of 1956 (Tiger Haynes, Inga Swenson, Maggie Smith) and Ziegfeld Follies (Beatrice Lillie). Musical director and arranger for Tallulah Bankhead's only nightclub appearances (Sands Hotel, Las Vegas). Composer, National Repertory Theatre (Eva LeGallienne, Denholm Elliott, Farley Granger, Sylvia Sydney). Co-author/composer of the Off-Broadway musical Smith. Author of three novels: Passage, A Death in Paris and Death of a Critic.