Original Creative Team

David Ives (Original Book Author) David Ives was born in Chicago in 1950 and educated at Northwestern University and Yale School of Drama. A 1995 Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, he is probably best known for his evening of one-act comedies called All in the Timing, which ran for over 600 performances off-Broadway and was subsequently presented in many cities here and abroad. The show won the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award, was included in “The Best Plays of 1993-94,” and in the 1995-96 season was the most-performed play in the country after Shakespeare productions. It has been translated into German, French, Italian, Brazilian and other languages. Another evening of short comedies, Mere Mortals, enjoyed a long off-Broadway run in 1997-98. A third evening of one-acts called Lives Of The Saints has premiered in Philadelphia. Vintage has published a volume of David Ives’ short comedies under the title All in the Timing: Fourteen Short Plays. A follow-up anthology has appeared from Grove Atlantic titled Time Flies: Thirteen Short Plays. Four of David Ives’s short comedies have been included in the “Best Short Plays of  the Year” volumes. Among David Ives’ full-length plays are Polish Joke, Ancient History, Don Juan in Chicago, The Red Address and The Land of Cockaigne (the last four are available from Dramatists Play Service). He wrote the libretto to an opera based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and the book for the musical Make Someone Happy with Phyllis Newman, using the songs of Comden and Green. He has adapted nine classic American musicals for the celebrated Encores! series at City Center, he adapted Cole Porter and Moss Hart’s Jubilee for Carnegie Hall, in 1996 he wrote Ira Gershwin’s 100th birthday celebration for Carnegie Hall, and in 1997 he adapted David Copperfield’s Dreams and Nightmares for Broadway. He has taught playwriting and screenwriting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and at Columbia University. He lives in New York City and is currently working with composer/lyricist Jim Steinman on Batman: The Musical and Dance Of The Vampires, a musical which will come to Broadway in fall 2002.
 

Paul Blake (Original Book Author) Paul Blake has written 3 shows including Breakfast at Tiffany's (Book Writer) and Roman Holiday - The Cole Porter Musical (Book). Paul Blake has been nominated for several awards throughout his career. He received a nomination for Best Musical at the Tony Awards for his work on "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical." Additionally, he was nominated for Outstanding Director of a Musical at the Kevin Kline Awards for his direction of "Damn Yankees." These nominations highlight Blake's talent and recognition in the Broadway industry.
 

Walter Bobbie (Original Stage Production)  As an actor, dancer, singer, choreographer, stage director, writer, and conceptual artist, Walter Bobbie (b. Scranton, PA, 18 November 1945) has worn a surprising number of theatrical hats. With experience both on and off Broadway, he has been twice nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Guys and Dolls, 1992; Polish Joke, 2003), twice nominated for a Tony Award® for Best Book of a Musical (A Grand Night for Singing, 1994; Footloose, 1999), and winner of the 1997 Tony® and Drama Desk Awards, plus an Outer Critics Circle Award, for his direction of the 1996 revival of Chicago. Chicago also traveled to London, where Bobbie was nominated for a 1998 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award. He was the Artistic Director of the New York City Center Encores! concert series for three years, and continues to serve on its Board. Bobbie grew up in Scranton as part of an enormous Polish immigrant coal-mining family – he had 48 first cousins on one side of the family alone. One of his earliest memories was wondering, at age four, how a person could get out of Scranton. He went to the University of Scranton, a Jesuit college, with the purpose of becoming, first, an accountant and then, a priest, but finally graduated with a major in Literature and minor in Philosophy. He had been taking part in amateur and school theatrical productions since kindergarten, and after college earned his Masters degree in theatre from The Catholic University of America.
 

Irving Berlin (Music and Lyrics) American musical theater composer Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline, in eastern Russia on May 11, 1888, the youngest of six children of Jewish cantor Moses Blaine, who brought his family to New York in 1893. When his father died a few years later, Israel left school and helped support the family as a busker, entertaining with skits and songs on the sidewalks of New York's Lower East Side. He changed his name to Irving Berlin in response to rampant anti-Semitism in the New York entertainment world. Although he never learned to read or write music, Berlin became a self-taught rudimentary pianist and moved from street entertainer to jobs as a singing waiter, and later as a song plugger in Tin Pan Alley. He sings by first working out his compositions on the piano, and then playing them for somebody who could transcribe them into musical notation, a system he continued to use his entire career. Irving Berlin's first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911, and his first major Broadway musical, "Watch Your Step" in 1914, initiated a musical career that produced 19 musical shows, 18 movie musical scores, and over 1,000 songs during the next 50 years. Among these were such classic hits as "Easter Parade" and "There's No Business Like Show Business". He built his own Broadway theater, the Music Box, where he produced new shows and revues at a rate of almost one a year. Perhaps his all time most successful shows were "Annie Get Your Gun", 1946, and "Call Me Madam", 1950, both starring Ethel Merman. Berlin married Dorothy Goetz in 1912, but that marriage ended tragically when she died of typhoid fever only five months later.
 

Larry Blank (Orchestrations) Larry Blank Is One Of The Most Prolific And Sought After Composers, Conductors, And Orchestrators In The Entertainment Business Today. His Work Has Been Presented All Over The World, Including Some Of Broadway’s Most Successful Musicals, Carnegie Hall, And Top Television And Film Projects. He Was The Music Director/Conductor And/Or Vocal Arranger For Many Shows On Broadway And In Los Angeles Including They're Playing Our Song, Evita,Sugar Babies, La Cage Aux Folles, Phantom Of The Opera, Onward Victoria, Copperfield, Colette, A Chorus Line And A Little Night Music. He Has Been Nominated Three Times For Both The Tony Award And The Drama Desk Award For His Orchestrations In The Drowsy Chaperone, Irving Berlin's White Christmas And With Marc Shaiman For Catch Me If You Can.
 

Bruce Pomahac (Vocal and Dance Arrangements) Born July 2, 1948, Mr. Pomahac was the Director of Music for The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization for more than 20 years, in addition to his work as a musical consultant for Concord Theatricals, The Irving Berlin Music Company, and The Frederick Loewe Foundation.