Jason Robert Brown

Hellobama, one and all! Lots of gigs to tell you about, but first, to answer the question that’s being emailed to me at least ten times a day: The 13 vocal selections folio will be released in stores next month! Yes, finally, Hal Leonard is releasing the music to twelve songs from the show; it’s 128 pages of total awesomeness, so just hang on for another month and you can get it at your local music store or Amazon or wherever. Now you can dress up like Allie Trimm and sing “What It Means To Be A Friend” at yourRead More »

[Part 1 can be read here, and Part 2 can be read here. You’re in for a long night.] I was in Philadelphia in May 1996, doing the very first reading of Parade. Every night was spent arranging and rewriting material, and all day was spent rehearsing with Hal and the cast. It was exhilarating work, and for the first time in my career, I felt like I was right where I belonged: in a room with the best people in the business, creating something magical. At the end of the day before the final presentation, one of the actressesRead More »

In 2002, I came up with an idea for a musical that would be combined with a book series, aimed at and featuring teenagers. (Note, please, that this was several years before High School Musical was part the cultural Zeitgeist; at the time, nobody was thinking about teenagers and musical theater.) The idea was about a kid turning 13 and trying to make sense of an utterly chaotic life. I thought of six characters, all of them fairly archetypal but with some quirky twist, and put them in an anonymous Midwestern suburb, and started to determine the ways they’d interact.Read More »

Hellobama and Happy Holidays to you all! I’ve just returned from the East Coast, where we had a triumphant premiere for The Trumpet of the Swan at the Kennedy Center, plus Georgia and I got to go to the Kennedy Center Honors, which was the most surreal event I’ve ever attended. You can check out our reviews on my website, and also listen to a swell story from All Things Considered, where Andrea Seabrook interviews me, Richard Thomas and Marsha Norman. As you may have heard by now, the celebrated Broadway production of 13 is closing on January 4, soRead More »

I’m all set to return to regular blogging after this insane year, but the season calls for a special entry: The JRB Holiday Gift List! (Of course you don’t really need this list, since you’ve already done all your holiday shopping. Right?) The true JRB fanatic wouldn’t want to live without these fantastic bits of memorabilia, so hunt that person down and show him or her how much you care. The best possible gift would be tickets to 13, currently finishing out its run at the Jacobs Theatre on Broadway! There are lots of great discount offers available, such asRead More »