ANASTASIA

Biography

LYNN AHRENS

Lynn Ahrens is an American songwriter, lyricist, librettist and screenwriter known for her work in musical theatre, television and film. She has collaborated with Stephen Flaherty for many years, earning numerous prestigious awards and nominations.
Their most celebrated work is the Broadway musical Ragtime, for which they received the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award. Together, Ahrens and Flaherty have written numerous musicals, including Lucky Stiff, My Favorite Year, Seussical, A Man of No Importance, Dessa Rose, The Glorious Ones, Rocky, Little Dancer, and, more recently on Broadway, Anastasia and Once on This Island.
Ahrens was also nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her work on Twentieth Century Fox’s animated feature Anastasia. She wrote the teleplay for the 1994 musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol, featuring music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Ahrens. In addition, she was a staff writer and performer for ABC-TV’s Schoolhouse Rock!. She also wrote the lyrics for the theme song of After the Storm, a documentary about young Hurricane Katrina survivors staging a production of Once on This Island.

STEPHEN FLAHERTY

Stephen Flaherty is an American composer for musical theatre and film. He is best known for his long-standing collaboration with lyricist and librettist Lynn Ahrens.
Together they created some of the most acclaimed musicals of recent decades, including Ragtime, which received thirteen Tony Award nominations, two Grammy Award nominations and won the Tony Award for Best Original Score; Once on This Island, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival and the Olivier Award for Best Musical, and nominated for a Grammy Award and eight Tony Awards; and Seussical, which was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Flaherty was also nominated, alongside Ahrens, for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for the songs and score of the animated musical film Anastasia.

TERRENCE McNALLY

Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist and screenwriter. Often described as “the bard of American theatre” and “one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theatre world has produced,” McNally received five Tony Awards during his distinguished career.
He won the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class, and the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime. In 2019, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.
McNally was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996 and received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, followed by the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, one of the highest artistic honors in the United States.
His many accolades also include an Emmy Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards and three Hull-Warriner Awards.

STEFANO BELLONE

As a director, Stefano Bellone has helmed productions including The Phantom of the Opera (Italy, Spain, Monte Carlo), Dirty Dancing (Phoenix and Dominion Theatres, London West End), The Addams Family (São Paulo), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Milan, Madrid), Ghost (Madrid, Italy, Mexico City), An American in Paris (Genoa), Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s Mary Poppins (Milan, Rome), The Bodyguard (Milan, Rome, Spain), West Side Story (Milan, Genoa, Florence), Fame (Milan, also translator), Disney’s Newsies (Milan), Dirty Dancing (Italy, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Monte Carlo, Switzerland and Austria), Sunset Boulevard, American Bar (Todi), Sugar – based on the screenplay of Some Like It Hot (Italy), Titanic – The Tale of a Dream (Italy, also author and composer), Flashdance (Italy), the Alan Menken Piano Concert (Milan), Disney’s High School Musical, Little Shop of Horrors, Grease and Annie (Italy, also translator).
As a workshop director, his credits include Houdini (New York), Sugar (London), Newsies, Around the World in 80 Days and Notte prima degli esami (Milan).
As an author and/or composer, he created La Notte di San Valentino (winner of the Ernesto Calindri Award and also starring Bellone as lead actor), Peter Pan and Dance Lessons.
As a performer, he has appeared in Cinderella (Prince), Caffè Esperanto (lead role) and Hello, Dolly!.
His television credits include Musical Awards, Amici and Sister Act – The Casting.
Bellone served as Artistic Director of the Nazionale and Brancaccio Theatres for Stage Entertainment and received the Garinei & Giovannini Award for Best Musical Theatre Director in 2019. *Also set designer. *Also co-executive producer.