| Ryan Scott Oliver | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 August 1984 |
| Occupations | Composer/Lyricist |
| Website | ryanscottoliver.com Crazytown |
Ryan Scott Oliver (born August 27, 1984) is a musical theatre composer and lyricist. He is the recipient of both the 2009 Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater.[1] He received his B.A. in Music Composition from UCLA and his M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He is also creator of the blog Crazytown.
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Oliver was born in Pasadena, California, to parents Scott and Sherry, a truck driver and facilities manager, respectively. His interest in musicals began at 9 years old when Oliver joined a local summer musical theatre camp. In 2004, Oliver took over the program as Artistic Director and renamed it the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program.[2]
Mrs. Sharp (previously called Alive at Ten), with music and lyrics by Oliver and book by Kirsten Guenther, is loosely based on the 1991 teacher-student sex scandal and murder trial surrounding Pamela Smart. Mrs. Sharp was given a staged reading at Playwrights Horizons in 2009 in a production directed by Michael Greif with Jane Krakowski as the title character. Playwright Horizons described Mrs. Sharp as:[3]
| “ | [T]he story of a woman who "wants you to become more." Having written an unsuccessful self-help series entitled Invent Yourself: Five Words to Live By, 31-year old Kimberly Sharp is encouraged by her husband to take a job teaching at the local high school. Kimberly sets out to change the lives of her students, absorbing them into her web of fantastical delusions and private affairs. But when her husband discovers she's gone just a bit too far, Kimberly realizes there's only one thing that can be done about him. Someone goes to jail, someone becomes a beloved self-help guru and someone gets shot in the head — but everyone learns a lesson from Mrs. Sharp. | ” |
Darling, with music and lyrics by Oliver, and book by B.T. Ryback, follows upper crust teenager Ursula Morgan in 1929 Boston as its society boils in the weeks before the Crash. Neglected by her excessive, self-absorbed parents, Ursula encounters Peter, a charming rent-boy of uncertain age, on the run from the Captain of Police who pursues him for a heinous crime he may or may not have committed. When she is offered the opportunity to run away with him, she takes it and finds herself swept into a seedy underground of jazz, sex and a mysterious white powder called Fairy Dust—and in love. Darling was presented by Pace New Musicals Program in 2009.[4]
35MM, a multimedia "musical exhibition" in which photographic images inspire music and lyrics, and inversely music and lyrics inspire photographs. The piece is made up of more than twenty songs and nearly 35 images by photographer Matthew Murphy. Some songs will elicit numerous photographs in one and others will be inspired by a diptych or triptych. The exhibition is orchestrated for six voices (three women, three men), and six players (viola/violin, cello, guitars, bass, percussion, and synthesizer). A full developmental production was presented at Urban Stages in December 2010, directed by Daisy Prince.
Jasper in Deadland, is a pop-rock musical based on the myth of Opheus and Eurydice. It follows 16-year-old Jasper Jarvis as he travels through the Afterlife on a mission to save his best friend, Agnes. Jasper in Deadland was commissioned in 2011 for the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program and a world premier workshop will be presented on August 5 and 6, 2011.