Lynn Ahrens | |
|---|---|
 Ahrens in 2025 | |
| Born | (1948-10-01)October 1, 1948 (age 77) New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Education | Syracuse University (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Lyricist, librettist |
| Years active | 1973–present |
| Spouse | |
| Website | ahrensandflaherty |
Lynn Ahrens (born October 1, 1948) is an American writer and lyricist for themusical theatre, television and film. She has collaborated withStephen Flaherty for many years. She won theTony Award,Drama Desk Award, andOuter Critics Circle Award for the Broadway musicalRagtime. Together with Flaherty, she has written many musicals, includingLucky Stiff,My Favorite Year,Ragtime,Seussical,A Man of No Importance,Dessa Rose,The Glorious Ones,Rocky,Little Dancer,Anastasia, andOnce on This Island.
She was also nominated for twoAcademy Awards and twoGolden Globe Awards for the animatedTwentieth Century Fox filmAnastasia. She wrote the teleplay of her1994 musical adaption ofA Christmas Carol, with music byAlan Menken and lyrics by Ahrens. She was a mainstay writer and performer forABC-TV'sSchoolhouse Rock! Ahrens also wrote lyrics for the title song forAfter the Storm, the documentary film about youngHurricane Katrina survivors putting onOnce On This Island.
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Ahrens was born in New York City. She grew up inNeptune Township, New Jersey, where she graduated fromNeptune High School on the Jersey shore in 1966.[1] She graduated fromSyracuse University with a degree in Journalism and English. She is Jewish.[2]
She then began a career in advertising as a copywriter for McCaffrey and McCall. It was her first job out of college. She was living with her ex-husband inFlushing, sleeping on the floor of his sister's apartment. While working as a secretary/copywriter, she would bring her guitar to play and write songs during lunch. George Newall was passing by and asked her casually to write a song forSchoolhouse Rock!. She wrote "The Preamble", and it went on the air with Ahrens singing it.[3] After that she began regularly writing songs for the show.[4] She subsequently worked as a freelance composer and singer of commercial music, and wrote and produced a number of songs for children's television, particularlyCaptain Kangaroo. She began writing for the musical theater in 1982.
She married Neil Costa in 1989.[5]
Ahrens metStephen Flaherty at theBMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in 1982 and they started working together the following year. Their first collaboration wasBedazzled, based on the 1967 filmof the same name, but had to abandon it when they could not secure the rights. They did some workshops, whereIra Weitzman noticed them and he was able to get the pair aNEA grant. Weitzman also connected the pair withGeorge C. Wolfe, and they collaborated on a piece calledAntler, but according to Ahrens, "no one could figure it out." The pairs' first produced musical was a children's musical,The Emperor's New Clothes forTheatreworks USA.[6]
Their first professionally produced musical together wasLucky Stiff, which premieredOff-Broadway atPlaywrights Horizons in April 1988. Their next musical wasOnce on This Island, which premiered on Broadway in 1990 and which was nominated for eightTony Awards.My Favorite Year opened at theVivian Beaumont Theater inLincoln Center in October 1992 and ran for 36 performances, winning the Tony Award for Andrea Martin as Best Supporting Actress.
Ragtime followed, opening on Broadway in January 1998 and running for 834 performances.Ragtime was nominated for twelve Tony Awards and won theBest Original Score for Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty in addition to theDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics.Ragtime was revived on Broadway in 2009, and was nominated for seven Tony Awards.
Seussical opened on Broadway in November 2000, and received aGrammy nomination. The musical later ran Off-Broadway in 2007, where it was nominated for theLucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Revival and theDrama League Award as Distinguished Revival of a Musical. This is one of the most performed musicals in the US.[7]
Ahrens and Flaherty's next musicals,A Man of No Importance (2002),Dessa Rose (2005), andThe Glorious Ones (2007) were produced at theMitzi E. Newhouse Theater inLincoln Center. They have frequently worked with director and choreographerGraciela Daniele.[citation needed]
They wrote original songs for theChita Rivera autobiographical show,Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life, in 2005.[8]
Their musical version ofRocky the Musical premiered inHamburg, Germany in October 2012. The show is based on the filmRocky and has a book byThomas Meehan.[9][10]
Rocky the Musical opened on Broadway at theWinter Garden Theatre on February 11, 2014 (previews), and officially opened on March 13, 2014. The musical is directed byAlex Timbers, with boxing choreography by Steven Hoggett and choreography by Kelly Devine. The former occupant of the Winter Garden Theatre, the musicalMamma Mia!, transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre in November 2013.[11][12]Andy Karl and Margo Seibert are featured as Rocky Balboa and Adrian.[13]
They have written a dance musical,Little Dancer, with direction and choreography by Susan Stroman, about a ballerina andEdgar Degas, which had a reading in 2010 atLincoln Center Theater[14] and a developmental lab production in June 2012.[15]Little Dancer premiered at theKennedy Center, Eisenhower Theater in October 2014 and closed on November 30, 2014. The cast starredRebecca Luker,Boyd Gaines and Tiler Peck.[16] The musical had a private reading on March 28, 2016, after having been revised.[17]
Ahrens and Flaherty wrote the songs for thestage adaptation of the filmAnastasia. Themusical premiered at Hartford Stage (Connecticut) from May 12, 2016, to June 12. Director Darko Tresnjak said, "We've kept, I think, six songs from the movie, but there are 16 new numbers. We've kept the best parts of the animated movie, but it really is a new musical."[18] The book is by Terrence McNally.[19]
With a book byFrank Galati, music by Flaherty, and lyrics by Ahrens,Knoxville premiered at theAsolo Repertory Theatre in spring 2020, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning bookA Death in the Family byJames Agee and Pulitzer Prize winning playAll the Way Home byTad Mosel.[20] It will starJason Danieley as Author.[21]
On her working relationship with Flaherty, Ahrens has commented, "Our lives have been very different ... But our sensibilities are very similar."[2]
In 1992, Flaherty and Ahrens were signed by Disney to writeSong of the Sea, a coming of age story about a whale, in the era of Disney films known as theDisney Renaissance. The project stalled and was never completed.[22]
Ahrens and Flaherty also collaborated on songs for the animated movieAnastasia (1997),[23] receiving twoAcademy Award andGolden Globe nominations for Best Song and Best Score. The end title song "At The Beginning" went to Number One, and the soundtrack went Gold.
Ahrens has written music and lyrics for and performed on the animated television seriesSchoolhouse Rock from 1973 to 2009.
Ahrens has also written a few songs forCaptain Kangaroo since the mid 1970s, including the 1982 theme song, "Here Comes Captain Kangaroo".
Ahrens wrote the teleplay for the 2004 television musicalA Christmas Carol, starring Kelsey Grammer, Jane Krakowski, and Jason Alexander.[24]
With composer Michael Gore, she contributed two songs, "Here's Where I Stand" and "I Sing For You", to the IFC feature film,Camp (2003).[25]
With Stephen Flaherty, she wrote lyrics for the title song forAfter the Storm, the documentary film about young Hurricane Katrina survivors putting onOnce On This Island.
Ahrens writes short stories which have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Calyx, Glimmer Train Stories and others. Her personal essays have appeared inNarrative Magazine[26] and have been nominated for "Best American Essays" and the "Pushcart Anthology".
Ahrens and Flaherty gave a series of concerts of their work inHobart,Melbourne andSydney, Australia from September 4 to 13, 2009.[27]
Ahrens is a lifetime member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America, and is a founder and co-chair of the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program for Emerging Writers.
She wrote text for the concert pieceWith Voices Raised (composer, Stephen Flaherty), which was commissioned by the Boston Pops Orchestra in 2000.
She wrote text for the concert pieceThe Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers (composer, Peter Boyer), which was commissioned and performed by the Boston Pops in 2009, and narrated byRobert De Niro,Ed Harris,Morgan Freeman andCherry Jones.
She wrote lyrics for the choral piece, "The Song I Sing" (music composed by Stephen Flaherty), commissioned by the Young People's Chorus of New York, and performed at Carnegie Hall by a chorus of 1000 children.
Charles Isherwood wrote of Ahrens and Flaherty: "a few composers and lyricists continue to risk irrelevance by pursuing their own lonely paths. Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens are among them. Mr. Flaherty and Ms. Ahrens, best known for their score forRagtime, continue to see the humanist potential in the medium. They insist on writing musicals that explore the struggles of men and women, as opposed to the synthetic creatures razzle-dazzling Broadway audiences with their preening vulgarity and self-devouring jokes."[30]
