WICKED Composer Stephen Schwartz Wins 2025 Johnny Mercer Award

Stephen Schwartz is this year's recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award at the 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame presentation. The award was presented at the star-studded Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala on June 12 at the Marriott Marquis Ballroom in New York City.

EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul sang a medley of Schwartz's hits and were followed by Broadway legend Kristen Chenoweth and the current Glinda, Allie Trimm, singing, “For Good.” After Schwartz's acceptance speech he sat at the piano and sang, paying tribute to all songwriters with a song from his show about the writer, Hans Christian Andersen.  

“The Johnny Mercer Award is the highest honor bestowed by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and it is exclusively reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team who has already been inducted in a prior year and whose body of work is of such high quality and impact that it upholds the gold standard set by Johnny Mercer himself,” according to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 

“Stephen, like Johnny, is a lyricist and composer whose work is recognized in film, theater and recordings,” said JMF Vice President Jonathan Brielle. “With three Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, six Tony Award nominations, and a Golden Globe, Stephen would have been admired by Johnny as a fellow traveler!”   

“For the past three decades Stephen has directed the ASCAP MUSICAL THEATRE Workshop nurturing theatre songwriters,” said JMF Board Member Michael Kerker. “Like Mercer, Stephen's influence can be heard on the writers he mentored, including Pasek and Paul (The Greatest Showman, La La Land, and Dear Evan Hansen) as well as such Broadway writers as Glenn Slater (Sister Act), Chad Beguelin (Aladdin), Matthew Sklar (Elf), Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner (First Date), and Steven Lutvak (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder).” 

Schwartz was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009. His songs set the tone for iconic and award-winning musicals, including Wicked, Godspell and Pippin! Schwartz also co-wrote beloved songs for Disney's Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Enchanted, as well as Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt.