Stuart Ostrow

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Stuart Ostrow (born circa 1932) is an American theatrical producer and director, professor, and author.

Born in New York City, Ostrow began his career as an apprentice of Frank Loesser and eventually became Vice-President and General Manager of Frank Music Corporation and Frank Productions, Incorporated, the co-producers of the Broadway productions The Most Happy Fella, The Music Man, Greenwillow, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Ostrow's first solo project was as producer and director of Meredith Willson's Here's Love, the 1963 musical stage adaptation of the classic film Miracle on 34th Street. Subsequent producing credits include The Apple Tree, 1776, Pippin, M. Butterfly, and La Bête, which won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy.

In 1973, Ostrow established the Stuart Ostrow Foundation’s Musical Theatre Lab, a non-profit, professional workshop for original musical theatre, the first of its kind. Since its inception, the MTLab has presented thirty-two experimental new works, including The Robber Bridegroom by Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman, Really Rosie by Maurice Sendak and Carole King, and Up From Paradise by Arthur Miller and Stanley Silverman.

Ostrow has served on the Board of Governors of The League of New York Theatres, the Advisory Committee of The New York Public Library, the Board of Directors of the American National Theatre and Academy, and the Pulitzer Prize Drama Jury, and was a founding member of the Opera-Musical Theatre Program of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Ostrow presently is the Distinguished University Professor of Theatre at the University of Houston. He is the author of A Producer’s Broadway Journey, Thank You Very Much (The Little Guide To Auditioning For The Musical Theatre), and Present At The Creation, Leaping In The Dark and Going Against The Grain: 1776, Pippin, M. Butterfly, La Bête & Other Broadway Adventures.

Among his other achievements, Ostrow is a trained musician, choral conductor-arranger, and clarinetist.