Stephen Cole
WRITER & PERFORMER
STEPHEN COLE
Stephen Cole is an award-winning writer whose 25 year career in the theatre had taken him and his musicals from New York City to London to the Middle East and Australia. His off-Broadway musical AFTER THE FAIR (music by Matthew Ward; winner of 5 Dallas Theatre Awards for its world premiere) was nominated for the Outer Critic’s Circle Award for Best Musical and was subsequently produced in London to great acclaim. The original cast CD featuring Tony winner Michele Pawk won several awards. A 20th Anniversary concert was presented to great acclaim. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (music by Claibe Richardson) won the prestigious Edward Kleban Award for Stephen and was produced in San Francisco where it was nominated for several Bay Area Theatre Awards. The musical has subsequently been produced in NYC as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2006 and was produced at Lyric Stage in Dallas with a full orchestra. The award winning concept CD features Ron Raines and Dorothy Loudon and was the recipient of a German music critics Award.
SATURDAY NIGHT AT GROSSINGER’S (music by Claibe Richardson) has had successful runs in Dallas (Starring Gavin MacLeod), LA, Florida and most recently in Sonoma, CA.
Broadway legend Chita Rivera toured in his show CASPER (music by Matthew Ward) Right before the Pandemic CASPER was reborn as CASPER-THE FRIENDLY MUSICAL and played to rave reviews at Cincinnati Children's Theatre. Hal Linden and Dee Hoty starred in the world premiere of Stephen’s musical adaptation of DODSWORTH (music by Jeffrey Saver) at Casa Manana.
In 2005 Stephen and composer David Krane were commissioned to write the first American musical to premiere in the Middle East and the result was ASPIRE, which was produced in Qatar. Their amazing and hilarious cross-cultural experiences resulted in yet another musical about the creation of the show entitled THE ROAD TO QATAR! which was produced to rave reviews at the Lyric Stage in Texas, had a successful run Off-Broadway, has been recorded by Jay Records and played at the Edinburgh International Festival garnering a Best Musical nomination. Saver and Cole’s new musical TIME AFTER TIME had its world premiere in Feb. 2010 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse under the direction of Gabriel Barre. Other produced shows include MERLIN'S APPRENTICE and ROCK ODYSSEY, which had 10 seasons of productions at the Adrienne Arscht Center Miami. With David Evans, Stephen has written MERMAN'S APPRENTICE, which was a smash hit at Birdland in NYC and has a cast album on Jay Records, as well as playing in autumn of 2019 to rave reviews in Sonoma and winning the SF Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Score. Stephen has five published books (one under option as a feature film), including THAT BOOK ABOUT THAT GIRL and I COULD HAVE SUNG ALL NIGHT, the Marni Nixon story (currently in development as a feature film from Amazon), NOEL COWARD and Charles Strouse's memoir PUT ON A HAPPY FACE. Stephen’s first novel MARY AND ETHEL…AND MIKEY WHO? was just published to rave reviews (“The Best Broadway Book in Decades”) in January 2024, with the audio book performed by Anita Gillette. Cole’s latest book is CAMELTON, the true story of what really went on in the Middle East when Musical Comedy invaded Qatar!
In addition, Stephen has created and executive produced a new web-series entitled CONEY ISLAND SURPRISE starring Anita Gillette, which has won numerous awards and been featured in several film festivals across the US. Stephen is the recipient of a Gilman-Gonzales Falla Commendation for musical theatre. Stephen is a Fellow with the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Visit www.stephencolewriter.org for more information.
