Winners of 2007 Richard Rodgers Awards are Announced

Calvin Berger and Main-Travelled Roads have been selected as the winners of the 2007 Richard Rodgers Awards for musical theatre writing.

Calvin Berger is by Barry Wyner, while Main-Travelled Roads is a musical written by Paul Libman and Dave Hudson.  Under the chairmanship of Stephen Sondheim, a seven-member committee that included Lynn Ahrens, John Guare, Sheldon Harnick, Jeanine Tesori and John Weidman chose the winning entries.  Both musicals will receive Manhattan staged readings this year.

According to press notes, Calvin Berger is loosely based on Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac and concerns "Calvin, a lovable guy with a big nose and high hopes for romance, (who) traverses the road of adolescence, fraught with the complexities of friendship, insecurity, lust and longing."

Main-Travelled Roads follows "two love stories set against the backdrop of American farm life in the 1800s."  The musical is based on Hamlin Garland's short stories.

The Richard Rodgers Award was established by Dorothy Rodgers, widow of Richard, to recognize a veteran composer or lyricist of musical theatre for a lifetime of achievement in this great American art form.  The awards, which "provide financial support for productions, studio productions, or staged readings by nonprofit theatres in New York City," are administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Photo of Stephen Sondheim by Linda Lenzi

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