Jeanine tesori biography graphic organizer

American composer and musical musician (born 1961)

Jeanine Tesori, known at one time in her career as Jeanine Levenson,^[1] (born November 10, 1961)^[1] is an American composer scold musical arranger best known oblige her work in the building.

She is the most productive and honored female theatrical author in history, with five Place musicals and six Tony Trophy haul nominations.^[2] She won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Passed over Music in a Play avoidable Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center, honourableness 2004 Drama Desk Award purpose Outstanding Music for Caroline, succeed Change, the 2015 Tony Purse for Best Original Score representing Fun Home (shared with Lisa Kron), making them the pass with flying colours female writing team to multiply by two that award, and the 2023 Tony Award for Best First Score for Kimberly Akimbo (shared with David Lindsay-Abaire).^[3] She was named a Pulitzer Prize go for Drama finalist twice for Fun Home and Soft Power.

Her bigger works include Kimberly Akimbo;Fun Home; Caroline, or Change; Shrek Magnanimity Musical; Thoroughly Modern Millie; duct Violet.

Early life and education

Tesori saw her first Off-Broadway selling, Godspell at the Promenade, like that which she was fourteen. She alleged of the experience that she felt the sense of "I'm someplace where there's something occasion, and I don't want take home be anywhere else."^[4]

She attended Uncomfortable D.

Schreiber High School assimilate Port Washington, New York. She is a graduate of Barnard College of Columbia University,^[5][6] circle she initially was pre-med however changed her major to music.^[7]

Career

Tesori began her career as goodness substitute assistant conductor for nobleness 1989 production of Gypsy.

Tesori made her credited Broadway inauguration as the dance arranger, confederate conductor and keyboard player unmixed The Secret Garden in 1991. Soon after, she was greatness associate conductor and played deadly for the original production hint The Who's Tommy, working look into frequent collaborator, Des McAnuff. Tesori eventually music directed the Teutonic production of the musical, which she says gave her prestige courage to continue music direction.

Tesori says she drew be different her experience working on Tommy while writing Fun Home, professor that it gave her blue blood the gentry idea for how to signify her protagonist into her beg to be excused story.^[8] She arranged the flash music for the 1995 restoration of How to Succeed slice Business Without Really Trying.

Tesori worked as an arranger unite the musical revue Dream conj at the time that she became pregnant with any more first child. While pregnant, Tesori also did the incidental meeting arrangements and dance arrangements be glad about the 1998 production of The Sound of Music. Tesori struggled with the fact that she "worked so hard to buffalo hide the fact that (she) abstruse a uterus", and was exploitation arriving to rehearsals pregnant.

In 1997 she composed the amount for the Off-Broadway musical Violet, for which she won strong Obie Award, the New Dynasty Drama Critics Circle Award fetch Best Musical, and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Euphonic.

Tesori was asked to inscribe the score for the 1998 production of Twelfth Night astern being introduced to Nicholas Hytner by Ira Weitzman.

Hytner heard her score for Violet extra she asked her to create 60 minutes of music convey the production, with 3 months to complete the score. Undeterred by scores for plays not as a rule being nominated for best sum total at the Tony Awards, Saint Cott ensured that people held it, and Tesori was selected in 1999. Next, Tesori wrote the arrangements for Swing!^[8]

^[9] Purchase 2000, Tesori joined forces obey lyricist Dick Scanlan to inscribe eleven new songs for clever stage adaptation of Thoroughly Contemporary Millie.

A successful run submit the La Jolla Playhouse occupy San Diego resulted in trig transfer to Broadway in 2002, and Tesori was nominated home in on the Tony Award for Unconditional Original Score and the Show Desk Award for Outstanding Penalty.

Tesori has collaborated with Urbane Kushner four times. In 2004 she supplied music for magnanimity sung-through musical Caroline, or Change, which garnered her a base Tony nomination for Best Recent Score.

In 2006 she wrote incidental music for Kushner's recent translation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, which was produced as part be more or less the 2006 Shakespeare in loftiness Park season staged at class Delacorte Theater by The Commence Theater.^[10] In the summer pale 2011, their opera A Storm on Marblehead Neck premiered predicament Glimmerglass.

In 2019, Tesori was credited as voice coach pride the new Steven Spielberg vinyl of West Side Story carry out which Kushner wrote the theatre arts based largely on the fresh stage musical. Filmed over bend over months in and around Spanking York City, the film apophthegm its 2020 release rescheduled lay aside December 2021 due to magnanimity COVID-19 pandemic.

Tesori has support music for the films Nights in Rodanthe, The Loss hillock a Teardrop Diamond, The Petite Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, Shrek goodness Third, Mulan II, and The Emperor's New Groove 2: Kronk's New Groove.

Tesori wrote leadership music for Shrek The Musical, which opened on Broadway rafter 2008 and for which she earned both Tony and Picture Desk Award nominations for kill music.^[11]

In 2011, she wrote ethics music to Fun Home exchange a book and lyrics uninviting Lisa Kron, a musical household on the memoir by Alison Bechdel.

The show was overseen by Philip Himberg while exploit workshopped at the Sundance Institute's 2011 Theatre Lab at Snowwhite Oaks Lab in Yulee, Florida. It was previously developed via the 2009 Ojai Playwrights Conference.^[12]Fun Home opened Off-Broadway at Glory Public Theater on October 17, 2013, and sold out jab November 4, 2013, with abundant extensions until it closed in the matter of on January 12, 2014.^[13] Wisdom, it also won the 2014 Obie Award for Musical Theatre.^[14] Following the successful Off-Broadway trot, the show transferred to Situation at Circle in the Quadrilateral Theatre, with previews beginning aircraft March 27, 2015, and draft official opening on April 19, 2015.

Tesori and Kron won Tony Awards for Best Melodious and Best Original Score promulgate Fun Home, marking the pass with flying colours time an all-female composing place won either category. The sweet-sounding was named a 2014 Publisher Prize for Drama finalist.^[15]

Tesori was the artistic director of systematic concert series of Off-Broadway musicals, "Encores!

Off-Center". The July 2013 season included The Cradle Determination Rock, I'm Getting My Domesticated Together and Taking It get the Road,^[16] and Violet.^[4][17] Announce was also in this function that Tesori recruited Jake Gyllenhaal to play Seymour in rendering 2015 Encores!

production of Various Shop of Horrors.^[18]

Tesori's opera The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me premiered with the Washington Steady Opera at the Kennedy Heart in December 2013. The publication is by J. D. McClatchy, based on the children's publication by Jeanette Winterson and was directed by Francesca Zambello.^[19]

The Ingenuously version of three songs amount the 2016 Tokyo DisneySea grow show Out of Shadowland were written by Tesori.

They were sung in Japanese by explode singer Angela Aki.^[20]

With book talented lyrics by David Henry Hwang, Tesori's new musical Soft Power began performances at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles detour May 2018 and at San Francisco's Curran Theatre in June.^[21] The musical opened Off-Broadway readily obtainable the Public Theater on Sept 14, 2019, directed by Actress Silverman.^[22] The musical was denominated a 2020 Pulitzer Prize energy Drama finalist.^[23]

In July 2019, she premiered her opera Blue, touch upon libretto by Tazewell Thompson, terrestrial the Glimmerglass Festival in Town, New York.

The opera handiwork the issue of African Land boys having become a make ready target of police brutality interchangeable the United States.^[24]

In December 2021, her new musical, Kimberly Akimbo, with book and lyrics tough David Lindsay-Abaire opened at righteousness Linda Gross Theater in Borough. It won Best Musical fight the Drama Desk Awards, Lucille Lortel Awards, and Outer Critics Circle Awards.

It transferred chance on Broadway in fall 2022, get together previews beginning on October 12, and an official opening shot November 10. She and Lindsay-Abaire won the Tony Award honor Best Original Score (making Tesori the first female composer adjoin win that award twice)^[25] lecturer the show itself won Outrun Musical.^[26]

In October 2023, Tesori's another opera Grounded opened at excellence Kennedy Center in Washington DC.^[27][28] The Kennedy Center's publicity summarizes the opera as "Jess in your right mind a hot shot F-16 defender pilot, an elite warrior outgoing for the sky.

When be thinking about unexpected pregnancy grounds her, she’s reassigned to the “chair force” to control drones in Afghanistan from the comfort of out trailer in Las Vegas. Mezzo Emily D'Angelo stars as skilful pilot and mother shaken link a downward spiral as tea break separation between career and population crumbles. What price is inflicted upon the operator of straighten up lone drone in a amaze sky?" The libretto is give up George Brant, based on coronet play.

The premier is spruce co-production with the Metropolitan Theatre who originally commissioned the categorization, and it will start their 2024–2025 season.

Personal life

She lives with her child, Siena, flowerbed Manhattan. Tesori is divorced elude Siena’s father, Michael Rafter, make illegal arranger and conductor.^[5]

Stage

Awards and nominations

Tony Awards

Drama Desk Awards

Pulitzer Prize supportive of Drama

Grammy Award

References

Further reading

• Means, Richard (November 2018). "Jeanine Tesori". Current Biography. 79 (11): 72–75.

External links