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The Latest Lyricists- Meet the 2018 Winners of the Kleban Prize
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Nov 3, 2022
The Kleban Foundation just presented the 28th Annual Kleban Prize for Musical Theatre. Adjudication in the 2018 Kleban Prize for the most promising musical theatre lyricist category resulted in a tie between Alan Schmuckler and Amanda Yesnowitz, and the 2018 Kleban Prize for the most promising musical theatre librettist has been awarded to Christian Duhamel.
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Hi there, I'm Katie Lynch for Broadway World here at the 2018
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Clubbin Prize for Musical Theatre. Let's get inside and talk to the winners
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This award is, I mean it goes without saying it's a tremendous honor. It's very humbling
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It feels like a strong call to action for me as someone who works in this
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industry. It's a vote of support and of confidence from a group of
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creators whose work I greatly admire and have admired my whole life. And so it says to me, keep doing what you're doing
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Keep trying to work hard. Keep trying to get better and better at what you do
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It says to me, keep going. And that means a great deal to me
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It means that I am a mere tile in the mosaic of the legacy of Ed Kleban
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And that's worth $10 billion. dollars. As a writer, you slog away in private, in secret for long hours, you know, at the keyboard
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or at the computer or at your paper, and you slave away in ways for years. You work very hard
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for years and years. I should use better language. And then when you submit stuff, to get this
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recognition is a door opener, and it suddenly invites people like Broadway World to come and
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say, we should ask you questions, or it, you know, getting to meet some of the people who are here
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tonight and just to share a bit of my work and what my career has been and where I wanted to go
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It's very exciting and it's been a very big confidence booster for me as well
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What did you do when you found out you won? I got a voicemail from Richard Maltby and the Cleveland Foundation saying
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could you give us a call back And I said to myself get ahead of yourself You don know relax take it easy wait until you hear When I heard I called my family I called my mom I called my dad I called some of my closest collaborators
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We weren't really allowed to tell many people at first, but I called the people who I've grown alongside
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and who have been right there with me as I've done the work that I'm being honored to get this award for right now
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I panicked. I totally panicked. Actually, there was a little lag time between getting the phone
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call because it was voicemail and then getting the actual information. So during that time
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I did a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle to distract me to pass the time waiting because I got the
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voicemail, which just said, call us back, not that you won. And so I needed to pass the time
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So that is what I did. I cried. I totally cried. In fact, I didn't even get off the phone and I was crying
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I like held it together. My dad, who's here somewhere, he's back there, was actually in the room with me
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And so I got to like stand up and say it happened and give him a big hug
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And then we cried. So it was like a really sweet father-son moment in addition to a big career
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OMG, what's about to happen? I'll be waiting to hear that song
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Okay. Okay, good. I'm taking notes. Do you get a percentage of that
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I just want to know what deal we're making right here. So what does this award mean for your future
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It's such a wonderful prize. Well, it's certainly a lot of approbation
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which as artists we need at all points during our career, when we're starting out, when we're in the middle later on
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So it means that but I hoping that it means some more visibility for my work So maybe some attention for projects that I already working on and perhaps will get the attention of other projects and collaborators
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So visibility. It means a vote of confidence in the sort of work that I have been doing, in the way
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that I've been working. It says to me, again, keep working hard
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It means, you know, my future is still unknown, but it means that what I've been doing to get to this point has been seen and that feels good and is being encouraged and that feels really good
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It actually is just starting to feel real, so I'm like, what does it mean? I've had several projects in development early stages that I'm so excited now to have some financial ability to do workshops make the demos put them out there in the way that they need to be in order to be perceived the way they ought to be
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So I'm really excited about that and then I just need some technology upgrades so I'm excited for some new sound equipment that I've been hoping to get and just a new setup for my writing life
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Those are like two of the big ones. And then just practically living in New York is expensive
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It can be difficult. And so to have a little bit of breathing room over these next couple of years is just huge in terms of having brain space to create
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By the way, my award 20 years in the making. I think I've applied for this award 18 or 19 times
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And I'm always a bridesmaid, never a winner. Oh my gosh. Yes, so you can imagine
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Well, you submit, you pick eight songs, eight lyrics. they can be from one show or they can be from a variety
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and I tend to do like the greatest hits. I know for the Kleban, because Ed Kleban was such a lover
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of language and so witty so I tried to include more of my lyrics that are I guess lyric driven and you submit them and then you wait a really long time and you just live your life I mean like everything
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else you're working on your projects and you're doing your your I I'm a professor at NYU so that's
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my day job a wonderful day job and you just kind of live your life thinking somewhere out there in
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people are listening to something I wrote and you just hope something resonates and people can
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recognize crafts. I consider myself a really strong crafts person. So I feel honored that
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other people feel the same way. I think it's a big part of doing this sort of thing, writing or
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I mean, acting, doing anything in any sort of creative profession to keep trying and to know
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that, you know, failure is a big part of it and rejection is unfortunately a big part of it. And
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to not take that personally and to use, use the rejection that is inevitable to grow and to try to
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push yourself further and further. Um, so yeah, I've applied to this a number of times. I've applied
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to other awards a number of times. Um, and, uh, hopefully if I'm lucky enough, I've got my head
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screwed on straight in the morning, uh, it's always an opportunity to keep moving forward
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no matter what happens. No, I will share one story. I actually did a thing last year called
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365. And my goal was to submit as a writer for something every day. I did not succeed
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but I had that goal and I wasn't going to submit. And it was actually my partner who was like
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press send. You need to submit that. You need to just do it. You said you were going to. So like
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you know, it's, it's not all a numbers game, but for me last year, I was just like
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that's my goal. I'm just going to keep sending it out. Thanks. Thank you
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