The 30th Annual Kleban Prizes for Musical Theatre were presented February 3 in a private ceremony hosted by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop at the ASCAP headquarters in New York City. The reception honored Daniel Mess茅 with the prize for most promising musical theatre lyricist and Rehana Lew Mirza and Mike Lew with the prize for most promising musical theatre librettist.
Mess茅 scored the Public Theater鈥檚 2009 Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night, starring Anne Hathaway and Audra McDonald. He made his Broadway debut with the stage adaptation of 础尘茅濒颈别, featuring music by Mess茅, lyrics by Nathan Tysen and Mess茅, and a book by Craig Lucas. He鈥檚 currently working with co-lyricist Sean Hartley on adapting Lucas鈥� play Prelude to a Kiss for South Coast Repertory and developing a new theatrical song cycle inspired by Twain鈥檚 Huck Finn entitled You Don鈥檛 Know About Me Without You.
Mirza and Lew are married playwrights sharing a Mellon Foundation National Playwright residency at Ma-Yi Theater. Their Rodgers Award鈥搘inning musical Bhangin鈥� It (co-book writers with composer Sam Willmott) is upcoming at La Jolla Playhouse and McCarter Theatre in 2021. Individually, Mirza鈥檚 plays include Hatefuck and Soldier X with Lew鈥檚 plays including Teenage Dick and Tiger Style!.
The trio of Tony Award-winning judges who made the final determination this year were Forbidden Broadway creator-director-writer Gerard Alessandrini, actor-director Victoria Clark (Light in the Piazza, Cinderella), and producer Robyn Goodman (Avenue Q, In The Heights).
The Kleban Foundation was established in 1988 under the will of Edward L. Kleban, best known as the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist of the musical . Kleban's will made provisions for annual prizes, which in recent years have totaled $100,000 each, payable over two years, to be given to the most promising lyricist and librettist in American Musical Theatre.
Previous Kleban Prize winners include Shaina Taub (The Devil Wears Prada), (), and (A Gentleman鈥檚 Guide to Love and Murder), (), (), and and (Avenue Q).
