The woman behind the legend sets the record straight!
creative team
Michele Brourman (Composer) is a Johnny Mercer Songwriter Award winner whose songs have been recorded by Michael Feinstein, Olivia Newton-John, Donny Osmond, Cleo Laine, Sheena Easton, Sally Mayes, Heather Macrae, Rita Coolidge, and more. Michele is the composer of the new musical Dangerous Beauty (lyrics by Amanda McBroom, book by Jeannine Dominy, directed by Sheryl Kaller) which was produced by the Pasadena Playhouse in February of 2011. She co-wrote and produced the songs for sixteen animated features for Universal Studios, as well as all the songs for The Land Before Time television series. Universal Studios' The Little Engine that Could featured Michele’s song “Joy of the Ride”, recorded by Corbin Bleu. Brourman and Rae are currently at work on Table Turns, an evening of five short musicals for four actors, Three of those “musical shorts”, presented initially in the League of Professional Theatre Women’s New Play Festivals, have been finalists for the Heideman Award, given by the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. Michele composed the dance and incidental music for the original Broadway production of Working. Her songs have been featured in movies (Shiloh and Shiloh Season) and television (Designing Women, Cagney and Lacey.) As a pianist and musical director, Michele has worked with artists Dixie Carter, Amanda McBroom, Tovah Feldshuh, Bernadette Peters, and others--and played piano in Bob Dylan’s band. Her “personal” CD, Fools and Little Children, is available online.
Sheilah Rae (Co-bookwriter, Lyrics) Co-wrote Funny, You Don’t Look Like A Grandmother (Wyse-Waldman) published by Samuel French, and produced the show in Los Angeles. Three-time Finalist for the Heideman Award (with Michele Brourman): Lovelines, What Goes Around, and The Waiter. On the Page (Brourman) in Snapshots, Prospect Theater Company. Upcoming: Table Turns (Brourman). Songwriter: Time, People, Doritos, Beechnut Baby Food, Ben Gay, New York/Nashville recording artists, TV. Performer, Broadway/Tours: Fiddler On the Roof, Applause, The Rothschilds, and Company (Playwrights Horizons), Artist RCA, backup Barry Manilow. Awards: Billboard, Music City Song Festival,Variety, Rising Star Galaxy Award/NY Women’s Agenda. Past-council Songwriters Guild of America, Past-President League of Professional Theatre Women, now Advisory Board. Board President of New York Theatre Barn. U of Michigan BMus., Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Member Dramatists Guild. www.sheilahrae.com
Thomas Edward West (Co-bookwriter) Over 30 years in the theatre as a playwright, librettist, director, artistic administrator and educator. As bookwriter: The Enchanted Cottage; Tom Sawyer, Class Clown, and The Play’s the Thing (also co-lyricist with Robert Waldman). Many plays, adaptations and translations produced Off-Broadway and in regional theatre; with Vincent Sardi wrote the coffee table book Off The Wall At Sardi's published by Amarna Books and Media. As director: over fifty professional productions, Cheek By Jowl’s Vanity Fair, The Changeling and The Little Foxes Off-Broadway, Scapino, The School For Wives, A History of the American Film, and lots of Shakespeare (various regional theaters), and the Richard Rodgers Award presentation of Little Women at the York Theater. Graduate of Ashland University (BA) and Florida State University (MFA) and shares a collective Pulitzer Prize in Journalism with his colleagues at The Wall Street Journal.