Stephen Schwartz

Composer Stephen Schwartz has found considerable popular success in the theater, both on and off Broadway, and in the movies, where he collaborated on several hit animated musicals for Disney. Schwartz was born March 6, 1948, in New York City, and as a high schooler studied piano and composition at Juilliard. He earned a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968, penning several student-produced musical shows, and was hired as a producer and A&R man for RCA Records not long after. During his two years at RCA, Schwartz had his first major success with the title song from the play Butterflies Are Free; after leaving, he was invited to contribute music and new lyrics for the show that became Godspell, a massive hit in 1971 that won Schwartz two Grammys. Later that year, he wrote the lyrics to Leonard Bernstein's Mass, and in 1972 premiered a revised version of a show he'd begun working on in college, Pippin; directed by Bob Fosse, Pippin was another success, going on to a five-year Broadway run.