Musical Theater Works of

Jan Powell & Ken Stone

Jan Powell, composer, is an ASCAP member and winner of numerous ASCAP Special Awards. He is proud to have been a performing member of Actors Equity Association, and one of the first elected representatives to the Member Advisory Board of the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. As a musical director in the professional theater, Jan has conducted more than 150 musical productions over the past thirty years. He is a member of the Antaeus Company, where his recent work as musical director, composer, or arranger includes Trial by Jury, Patience, Legal Briefs, Mother Courage and Her Children, A Tale of Charles Dickens (for broadcast on NPR's The Play's the Thing), and A.A. Milne and John Achorn's The Ugly Duckling. Currently Jan serves as a musical director for the historic Temple Theatre in Sanford, North Carolina. His work there includes the 2006 Christmas Show, A Dash of Rosemary, and Beehive, the '60s Musical. This season he is directing the music for the 2007 Christmas Show, Godspell, and Ain't Misbehavin'. Other work as musical director, conductor, or vocal arranger includes Rosenstrasse at Company Rep (world premiere), The Threepenny Opera at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Inside Out directed by Kay Cole, William Hoffman's Riga directed by Marshall Mason and produced by Drew Snyder and Venture West Theater, three seasons of A.S.K. Theater Projects' Nautilus Workshop directed by Ben Krywosz, and The Virginia Avenue Project directed by Leigh Curran. At USC Jan has served as musical director for Mansfield Park, Uncommon Women and Others, and The Threepenny Opera. At UCLA he has been an instructor in musical theater, audition technique, and vocal production during the Summer Institute program. At College of the Canyons he composed the score for a production of As You Like It. In television, Jan worked as musical director for ABC Family Channel's State of Grace, and composed original music for the CBS show The District. In addition to his many works of musical theater written with Ken Stone, listed below, Jan wrote music for Tom Huey's It Ain't the Heat, It's the Humility, published as one of the ten Best Short Plays of 1982, and words and music for The Ugly Duckling, published by the Dramatic Publishing Company. Now at home in Asheville, North Carolina, he recently composed the score for the world premiere of Sandra Mason's play Return of an Angel, which was produced during the 2007 Thomas Wolfe Festival by The Occasional Theatre. His musical Miss Vulcan 1939, written with Marian Partee and Noelle Donfeld, premiered at Red Mountain Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama, in September 2007, and is being prepared for a return engagement this year.

Ken Stone, bookwriter and lyricist, is a UCLA theater graduate, a long-time member of the Academy for New Musical Theatre, the Dramatists Guild, and ASCAP, and the winner of numerous ASCAP Special Awards. In 2005, Ken was named a winner of the prestigious Kleban Award for most promising librettist. This award, established by the late lyricist of A Chorus Line, seeks to encourage the growth and development of musical theater by awarding yearly grants to "promising lyricists and librettists working in the artistic form known as the American Musical Theatre." During a more than 20-year collaboration with composer Jan Powell, Ken has written shows that have been performed at La Mirada Civic Light Opera, Theatre Building Chicago, Los Angeles Theatre Center, the North Shore Music Theatre, TheaterWorks, the Powerhouse, the Victory Theatre, and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. Powell & Stone's works have been supported by the Frederick Lowe Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Tuners Theatre, and the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Awards include a Jefferson Citation nomination for new work, an award from the Columbia Entertainment Company, and the grand prize at the American Musical Theatre Festival. In addition to his own works, Ken has contributed lyrics and lyric translations to Legal Briefs, Rosie's, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Threepenny Opera, The New Normal, A Sensible Girl, and A.A. Milne and John Achorn's The Ugly Duckling.

Musical Theater Works

American Tales, consisting of the one-act musicals The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton, from the story by Mark Twain, and Bartleby, the Scrivener, from the story by Herman Melville. Presented in readings at the Antaeus Company, North Hollywood (photos: Alonzo, Bartleby), and now having its world premiere there as part of the Festival of New American Musicals. Read the reviews here!

The Legend of Tom Dooley (with bookwriter Brenda Lilly), a commission by The New Tuners Theatre, Chicago; North Shore Music Theatre, Beverly; and the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, Los Angeles, with funding by the National Endowment for the Arts. Presented as a reading at Stages 2000 in Chicago, and in a three-week workshop at North Shore Music Theatre, spring 2002.

Cashel Byron's Profession (with bookwriter John Sparks), a commission by The New Tuners Theatre, Chicago, with a grant from the Frederick Loewe Trust, awarded by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. A free adaptation of the Bernard Shaw novel. Presented as a staged reading in Stages '98 at the New Tuners Theatre; presented as a reading at North Shore Music Theatre in November 1998 and the Antaeus Company in North Hollywood in November 2002.

Everyday Heroes, the 1996 national touring musical of the Jeremiah People, which played an eight-month tour throughout the United States and Canada.

King of the Cowboys, musical animated screenplay. Also presented as a stage piece for the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, and the La Mirada Civic Light Opera.

Santa Flaws and Tabloid Tuners, satirical revues presented by The New Tuners Theatre: contributions of musical and sketch material.

Mr. Nice Guy (with bookwriter Arnold Margolin) and The Music Lesson, comic one-acts presented in Hollywood by the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

Trask & Fenn, a full-length musical drama for seven actors, which premiered at The New Tuners Theatre, winning a Jefferson Citation nomination in the New Work category. Presented in a staged reading for the National Alliance of Musical Theatre Producers; earlier given a staged reading at the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, cosponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. A darkly romantic musical set in Victorian England.

Crescent Moon, a one-act opera. Performed in the Los Angeles Theatre Center's Festival of Premieres.

Overland, a full-length musical drama set in 1844 among pioneers traveling from Missouri to Oregon. Premiered in Kansas City. Skeletal productions at The New Tuners Theatre cosponsored by Light Opera Works, and at UCLA and La Mirada Civic Light Opera sponsored by the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Grand prize winner of the American Musical Theater Festival contest for new musicals. Presented in a staged reading by TheatreWorks (Palo Alto, California). Earlier given two staged readings cosponsored by the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Patriots and Thieves, a musical play for young actors, written for the Performing Arts Center of Santa Monica, California, and produced at the Powerhouse. A prize winner in the Large-Cast Children's Theater Contest of the Columbia Entertainment Company in Columbia, Missouri.

Now Playing

American Tales, Antaeus Company, North Hollywood, California. Through August 10, 2008. Read the reviews here!

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