BROOKE PIERCE (Bookwriter)
Brooke graduated in 2002 from New York University, where she double majored in Dramatic Writing and Religious Studies and served as Theatre Editor of the NYU paper. She has written for TheaterMania.com, New England Entertainment Digest, Stage Directions Magazine, Show Business Weekly, and Go2 Mobile, and she was a contributing author to The TheaterMania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings and the Moon Metro New York City guidebook. Staged readings of Brooke’s plays and musical theatre projects have been held at Stage One Theater in Louisville, New Jersey Dramatists & The Waterfront Ensemble in Teaneck and Jersey City, Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival’s PlayFest 2005 in Orlando, and at both Ensemble Studio Theatre and the American Theatre of Actors in New York City. Brooke wrote the book for the musical Sympathy Jones (music and lyrics by Masi Asare), which was produced at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2007 and had its high school premiere by the State High Thespians in Stage College, PA in the fall of 2009. Her latest play, Beneath the Banyan Tree, recently had a reading at the Snapple Theater in NYC, produced by eyeBlink Entertainment. Current projects include a screenplay with Fame producer David de Silva, and the newly published book Arts America (as well as its companion website go-artsamerica.com). Brooke is co-director of the new London-based theater company This Stage Limited, and she is a member of the Drama Desk and the Dramatists Guild of America.
MASI ASARE (Music, Lyrics, Concept)
Masi holds a B.A. from Harvard and an M.A. from NYU Tisch, both in the field of Performance Studies. Her work has been performed in New York City at the Ohio Theatre, Ars Nova, HERE, LaMaMa, the Dixon Place Not For Broadway Festival, and Galapagos; and at the Brisbane Theatre Festival in Australia and the Neuropolis Festival in Berlin. Masi was a co-founder, with writer/director Eamonn Farrell, of the NYC-based Anonymous Ensemble, an experimental performance group. She wrote music and lyrics for the ensemble’s productions Oracle, The Emperor’s New Vestments, Lysistrata, and The Best—a long-form experimental rock theatre project. She also spent five years as a staff songwriter and music director for the Kidstock Theatre in Massachusetts, where she wrote some sixty songs for children’s musicals. Other projects include a musical adaptation of the children’s book The Knight Who Was Afraid of the Dark, commissioned by the Pocket Full of Tales theatre company (Boston, L.A.); the original musical Dances for a Journey, a triptych about sisterhood and identity premiered at Harvard’s Agassiz Theatre; and a several year stint as Associate Artistic Director of Raw Impressions Music Theatre, where she co-produced the Music Theatre Marathon and consulted on the Ripfest Movie Musicals initiative. Masi is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop, where Sympathy Jones was developed, and currently she works as Development Manager at the Lark Play Development Center.
Special Thanks
Many thanks to Michael Kerker, Stephen Schwartz and the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop, Jean Banks and the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop, Emily Miller, Kris Stewart, Isaac Hurwitz and the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). We would also like to thank our generous financial supporters and the many amazing actors and other artists who helped us develop the show. Please click here for a full list of these artists...to you all: A SUPER BIG THANK YOU!
