Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz was born in New York City on March 6, 1948. He studied piano and composition at the Juilliard School of Music while in high school and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a B.F.A. in Drama. Upon coming back to live in New York City, he went to work as an A&R producer for RCA Records, but shortly thereafter began to work in the Broadway theatre. His first major credit was the title song for the play BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE; the song was eventually used in the movie version as well.

In 1971, he wrote the music and new lyrics for GODSPELL, for which he won two Grammys among other awards. This was followed by the English texts, in collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, for Bernstein’s MASS, which opened the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The following year, he wrote the music and lyrics for PIPPIN, and two years later, THE MAGIC SHOW. At one point, GODSPELL, PIPPIN and THE MAGIC SHOW were all running on Broadway simultaneously.
He next wrote the music and lyrics for THE BAKER’S WIFE, followed by a musical version of Studs Terkel’s WORKING, to which he contributed four songs and which he also adapted and directed, winning a Drama Desk Award as best director. He also co-directed the television production, which was presented as part of the PBS “American Playhouse” series.
Other work for the musical theatre includes lyrics to RAGS (music by Charles Strouse), music and lyrics for CHILDREN OF EDEN, and two musicals produced overseas, MIT EVENTYR (MY FAIRY TALE) in Denmark and SCHIKANEDER in Austria. He has also written songs for two musicals for young audiences, CAPTAIN LOUIE and MY SON, PINOCCHIO. Compilation revues of his work include SNAPSHOTS and, for Princess Cruise Lines, MAGIC TO DO.
For film, he collaborated with composer Alan Menken on the songs for Disney’s POCAHONTAS, for which he received two Academy Awards and another Grammy, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, and ENCHANTED. He also provided songs for DreamWorks’ first animated feature, THE PRINCE OF EGYPT, for which he won another Academy Award for the song “When You Believe.” THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and THE PRINCE OF EGYPT have both been adapted for the stage.
Mr. Schwartz’s stage musical, WICKED, opened in the fall of 2003 and is currently running on Broadway and in several other productions around the world. He received another Grammy for the cast recording, and in 2008, WICKED reached its 1900th performance on Broadway, making Mr. Schwartz the only songwriter in Broadway history ever to have three shows run more than 1900 performances.
After Wicked, Schwartz contributed music and lyrics for a new musical which was commissioned to celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen. The production, titled Mit Eventyr or "My Fairytale", opened at the Gladsaxe Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark in the fall of 2005. The American premiere of My Fairytale took place in the summer of 2011 at the PCPA Theatrefest of California and was directed by Stephen Schwartz's son, Scott Schwartz.

Stephen Schwartz returned to Hollywood in 2007 and wrote lyrics for the hit Disney film Enchanted, again collaborating with Menken. Three songs from the film, "Happy Working Song", "That's How You Know", and "So Close" were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He wrote the theme song for the Playhouse Disney show Johnny and the Sprites, starring John Tartaglia. Schwartz wrote incidental music for Scott Schwartz's adaptation of Willa Cather's My Ántonia.

On several occasions prior to 2008, Stephen Schwartz had reached out to Tim Dang who was the longtime artistic director of Asian-Pacific Islander theater company, East West Players (EWP) in Los Angeles. The collaboration led to the conception of a new version of Pippin, aesthetically inspired by Japanese anime and musically inspired by hip-hop. In 2008, Applause Theatre and Cinema Books published the first Schwartz biography titled Defying Gravity, by Carol de Giere.

Turning to the pop world in 2009, Schwartz collaborated with John Ondrasik in writing two songs on the Five for Fighting album Slice, the title track in addition to "Above the Timberline". Ondrasik became familiar with Schwartz based on his daughter's repeated attendance at performances of and affection for the musical Wicked. In September 2011, Northlight Theatre in Skokie, Illinois premiered Schwartz's new musical, Snapshots, featuring music and lyrics by Schwartz, book by David Stern, and was directed by Ken Sawyer. It blended together "some of the best-loved music with some of the genuinely wonderful lesser known gems of (the) renowned Broadway composer." On March 22, 2012, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus released "Testimony", composed by Schwartz with lyrics taken from submissions to Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project. In March 2015, Princess Cruises announced a partnership with Schwartz for the development of four shows over three years. The first will be a magic themed revue of Schwartz's music, titled Magic To Do, including a new song written for the show.

Schwartz returned to write the lyrics for a sequel to Enchanted, titled Disenchanted. He recently wrote the music and lyrics for Queens of Versailles, which premiered at Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts in July and August 2024, starring Kristin Chenoweth and F. Murray Abraham. A Broadway production began in previews on October 8, 2025, and opened on November 9, 2025, at the St. James Theatre. It had its final performance on December 21, 2025.