Graduate Musical Theatre Writing

Biography

Mel Marvin is a veteran of 27 years in the theatre, with over a hundred musical, incidental and operatic scores to his credit.  He received a Tony nomination as a co-author of Tintypes and also wrote the music for the Broadway productions of Yentl and A History of the American Film. He has had nine shows produced Off-Broadway, and his regional credits include scores for most of America's best-known theatres, including the McCarter Theatre,Hartford Stage Company, Lincoln Center Theatre, Arena Stage, The Guthrie Theater, American Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse and the Mark Taper Forum (where he was an associate artist and wrote the first original score for Angels in America).    His best-known musicals are probably Elmer Gantry and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (now is entering its ninth sold-out season at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, directed by Jack O'Brien). The Grinch is opening on Broadway in November, 2006.   Recent musical projects include Great Expectations, with author John Jakes, produced by Goodspeed Musicals, and Gold, with Timothy Mason, commissioned and produced byEngland's Royal National Theatre. His opera, Guest From the Future, commissioned by Nine Circles Chamber Theatre,  premiered at the Summerscape Festival at the new Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in August, 2004 and plans are underway for a production inRussia in 2007.   Buwalsky: A Road Opera, commissioned by Holland's Opera Spanga,  had its premiere inAmsterdam in July, 2004 and toured inAmerica that fall, playing NYU'sSkirballCenter inNew York.   As a director, he has been involved in the development of and has  staged many new works, including the opera Different Fields, by Mike Reid and Sarah Schlesinger, and, most recently inNew York, The Scrimshaw Violin, an opera by Bruce Saylor and Jonathan Levi. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Theatre Communications Group, a recipient of many grants and awards, including three from the National Endowment, and a member of several grants panels (including the AT&T Awards for 2003).  He began at the Graduate Musical Theatre Program as a guest mentor in 1989, became an adjunct composer and director in 1991, joined the full-time faculty in 1995, became Head Faculty Composer in 1998, and became Associate Arts Professor in 2004.