Graduate Musical Theatre Writing

Biography

Fred Carl is a 1991 graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. This past summer he musical directed the first recording of Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her CHameleon Skin for Sh-K-Boom Records; it is currently in post-production with an expected release date of January 2007. In 2005 he musical directed Childs"s Miracle Brothers at NY's Vineyard Theatre. ALso in 2005 his revised score for Suzen Murakoshi's play Slippery When Wet was produced at St. Paul's Penumbra Theater; the piece had previous productions at LaMaMa E.T.C. and the 1996 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2003 he composed music forSparrowVillage, a short film directed by Christine Choy for the Zigen Fund. His jazz theatre collaborations with writer hattie gossett (including pussy and cash; in the waitingroom of the 21st century and the immigrant suite: hey zenophobe who you calling a foreigner?) have been performed at the New School, the Public Theater, the Whitney Museum, Here, the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, the Vision Festival and the National Black Arts Festival. Fred musical directed The Bubbly Black Girl... from its beginnings at Dixon Place and Musical Theatre Works thru its multiple award-winning 2000 Playwrights Horizons run; he received the 2000 Audelco Award for Best Musical Direction. Between 2002 and 2004 he arranged and musical directed LaChanze's cabaret performances atLincolnCenter and Joe's Pub. Since 1999 he has designed and co-led (with GMTWP colleague Robert Lee) a summer musical theatre-writing workshop at London's Theatre Royal Stratford East training hip-hop artists to write for the musical theatre stage; a version of the summer workshop was featured in the 2005 Channel Four documentary Rappin' at the Royal. Fred and Robert are also Artistic Associates of Stratford East and are members of the theater's Musical Theatre Advisory Committee.