Jason Robert Brown

Shoshana Bean and I have been yodeling, complaining, cracking each other up and messing up lyrics together for about fifteen years now. We sang together at a wedding, we sang together at a benefit for a preschool. We sang together in Portland, in Dallas, in Indianapolis, in London, at the Library of Congress, on a private island for an audience of four. We sang together onstage with Stephen Sondheim. We were the oldest Jamie and Cathy in the history of The Last Five Years. She is the only person who has ever sung the only song I’ve ever written withRead More »

Nineteen years after I started writing 13 with Dan Elish, I have the flabbergasting joy of presenting to you… the trailer for the Netflix motion picture “13: The Musical,” which begins airing on August 12! In this trailer, you get to see all of our teen stars – Eli Golden, Gabriella Uhl, Jonathan Lengel, JD McCrary, Frankie McNellis, Lindsey Blackwell – and so many of our amazing supporting cast – I see Ramon Reed, Nolan Dubuc, Luke Islam, Willow Moss, and if I freeze-frame, I can see Shechinah Mpumlwana, Khiyla Aynne, Kayleigh Cerezo and Liam Wignall – not to mention the grown-upsRead More »

When Mr. Saturday Night opened on April 29 at the Nederlander, it marked the first time I’ve had a new full score on Broadway since Honeymoon In Vegas closed in 2015. Certainly there’s been a lot going on in these seven years, but getting back on the Main Stem (and getting a Tony nomination to boot!) seemed like cause for celebration, and so I gathered the band, piled on the horns, brought along some new friends, and spent three nights at 54 Below singing and sharing what’s coming next. I had two aims: 1) showcase some new material, and 2)Read More »

One of my kids’ camp counselors needed to interview a composer for her school, so I got volunteered. I ended up kind of liking what I had to say, so I thought I’d post it here in case it gives a little inspiration. Q: What is your background as a composer? A: I started off wanting to play the piano when I was seven years old. My parents found an old piano and I immediately sat down and started making noise. Making my own music seemed like much more fun than playing what was on the page, so I startedRead More »

Not that long ago, I did 30 to 40 concerts a year, traveling all over the country, racking up frequent flier miles and staying in weird hotels and eating a lot of late dinners by myself. This year, I did three. (Not counting one performance this summer at my old sleepaway camp.) But I guess if you’re only going to do three, they should all be as special as these shows were to me. After a year of not performing, and the loss of my artistic home at SubCulture, I was so grateful for the chance to make music withRead More »