Original Creative Team

Born in 1919 in Philadelphia, Joe Masteroff had only one dream from infancy: to write for the theatre. After the essential lonely childhood and four-year stint in the Air Force, he came to New York to face his future: book writer or book seller? Luckily, luck intervened. Before long he had three shows on Broadway bearing his name: The Warm Peninsula starring Julie Harris, and two musicals, She Loves Me and Cabaret, for which he was the book writer. His other work included the libretto for 70, Girls, 70 and Desire Under The Elms and book and lyrics for Six Wives and Paramour. Thanks to indulgent parents, the New Dramatists, Hal Prince and many others, Joe Masteroff retired and lived in subdued luxury until his death in 2018.

John Kander is a Tony, Emmy and Grammy-winning composer, a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors Award, and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. With frequent collaborator Fred Ebb, he composed the score to dozens of Broadway musicals, including Cabaret, Zorba, Chicago, The Act, Woman of the Year, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Steel Pier.

John Harold Kander was born on March 18, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri to Harold and Berenice (Aaron) Kander. He attended Oberlin College, where he composed his first theatre scores, for Second Square and Opus Two in 1950 and Requiem for Georgie in 1951. He earned a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1954. During the summers of 1955 to 1957, he worked as the choral director and conductor of the Warwick Musical Theatre in Rhode Island. Kander began to work steadily as a pianist in 1956. He believes his big break in New York came by accident: He went to a club in Philadelphia after seeing a performance of West Side Story. By chance he happened to meet the pianist, who asked Kander to substitute for him while he went on vacation. The stage manager for West Side Story then asked Kander to play the auditions for her next show, Gypsy. During the Gypsy auditions, Kander met the choreographer, Jerry Robbins, who then suggested that Kander actually write the dance music for the show. After that experience, he again wrote dance arrangements for Irma la Douce in 1960.

As a composer, Kander made his Broadway debut in 1962 with A Family Affair, produced by Harold Prince. A year later, in 1963, Kander met lyricist Fred Ebb. Kander and Ebb began to work together, and their first song, “My Coloring Book,” was nominated for a Grammy award. Kander and Ebb's first theatrical collaboration, The Golden Gate, never opened on Broadway. However, the score convinced Harold Prince to hire the pair for his next production, Flora, the Red Menace, which opened in 1965, starring Liza Minnelli in her Broadway debut.

Cabaret, Kander and Ebb’s triumphant hit, opened on November 20, 1966 at the Broadhurst Theatre and ran for 1,166 performances. The show won the 1966 Tony Award for Best Musical and Kander and Ebb won for Best Score. In 1972, the film adaptation starring Liza Minnelli won several Oscars. The stage musical was revived at the Imperial Theatre in 1987 with some of the original cast reprising their roles. The show was revived again in 1998, earning another Tony for Best Revival.

Susbequent collaborations inclued The Happy Time, 70, Girls, 70 and Chicago. Another huge hit, Chicago ran for 898 performances and was revived in 1997, winning six Tony Awards, including Best Revival, Best Choreography, and Best Direction.

The team continued their collaboration with The Act, Woman of the Year, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman (Tony Award winner for Best Score), Steel Pier and Over and Over.

In 2000 Kander and Ebb were working together on The Visit, based on a play by Friedrich Durrenmatt. After Fredd Ebb passed away in 2004, Kander completed the project with playwright Terrence McNally.

Kander's film work includes scores for Something for Everyone (1969), A Matter of Time (1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Still of the Night (1982), Blue Skies Again (1983), Places in the Heart (1984), I Want to Go Home (1989) and Billy Bathgate (1991), and songs for New York, New York (1977), Cabaret (1972), Funny Lady (1975) and French Postcards (1979).

Kander and Ebb also collaborated on music for several television specials. In 1974 they won an Emmy Award and Grammy Award for their work on Liza with a ‘Z.' They won another Emmy in 1993 for Liza Minnelli in London, Steppin' Out. Other television projects featured Goldie Hawn, Shirley MacLaine, and Michael Baryshnikov.

In addition to his Tony, Grammy, and Emmy awards, Kander received honorary doctorate degrees from Oberlin College and Niagara University, the President's Award from the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.

For almost four decades, Kander and Ebb wrote music together for theatre, film, and television. Their collaboration was a true partnership. In an April 1997 article in The New York Times, Ethan Mordden wrote, "Mr. Kander and Mr. Ebb celebrate the Big Break, the American love of show biz, making it, performance. Their musicals may be set in Germany, Greece, or South America, may defy Fascism or flirt with death. But at the center of their art lies a love of the talent-take-all wonder of entertainment."

Fred Ebb (1933–2004) was an award-winning lyricist, librettist and director who frequently and successfully collaborated with composer John Kander. Ebb's work for the theatre included Flora, The Red Menace; Cabaret; The Happy Time; Zorba; 70, Girls, 70; Chicago; The Act; Woman of the Year; 2x5; The Rink; And The World Goes Round - The Kander and Ebb Musical; Kiss of the Spider Woman; and Steel Pier. His film work included Cabaret; Norman Rockwell: A Short Subject; Lucky Lady; New York, New York; Funny Lady; Kramer vs. Kramer; A Matter of Time; Places in the Heart; French Postcards; Stepping Out, and the 2003 Academy Award winner for best picture, Chicago. For television, Ebb wrote Liza with a Z; Goldie and Liza Together (starring Goldie Hawn and Liza Minnelli); Ol' Blue Eyes is Back (starring Frank Sinatra); Baryshnikov on Broadway; An Early Frost; and Liza in London. His last projects included a musical version of The Skin of Our Teeth and Curtains, with book by Rupert Holmes. Ebb also provided additional material for the updated script of Rodgers & Hart's By Jupiterand additional lyrics for the 1997 TV remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella.

Fred Ebb earned four Tony Awards (for Cabaret, Woman of the Year, and Kiss of the Spider Woman) and four Primetime Emmy awards (for Liza with a Z, Gypsy in My Soul, and Liza Minnelli Live From Radio City Music Hall) along with dozens of other accolades, including the Kennedy Center Honors and membership in the American Theatre Hall of Fame. In 2005, by instruction of Ebb's will, the Fred Ebb Foundation was established to present an annual award to an up-and-coming musical theatre writer or writing team.

Christopher Isherwood was a novelist, playwright, screen-writer, autobiographer, and diarist. He was homosexual and made this a theme of some of his writing. He was born near Manchester in the north of England in 1904, became a U.S. citizen in 1946, and died at home in Santa Monica, California in January 1986.

John William Van Druten (June 1, 1901 – December 19, 1957) was an English playwright and theatre director. He began his career in London, and later moved to America, becoming a U.S. citizen. He was known for his plays of witty and urbane observations of contemporary life and society.