Keith Levenson  (Music, Co-Author, Additional lyrics) crosses the borders of Broadway, Rock, Pop and Symphonic Music. 

 

Keith has conducted the Broadway and National Touring productions of “Annie” with Nell Carter and Sally Struthers, “Grease” with Deborah Gibson and MacKenzie Phillips, “Jesus Christ Superstar”, “Big River”, “Chess”, “Annie Warbucks”, “Dreamgirls”, and, the National Tour of “Tommy” and “Peter Pan” with Cathy Rigby. He served as Musical Supervisor of the National Tour of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” starring Ann-Margret, and the National tour of “Bridges of Madison County”.

 

As a Music Supervisor/Orchestrator/Arranger Keith has worked on Broadway and Regional Productions of “She Loves Me”, “Annie Warbucks”, “On the Town”, “Shenandoah”, “Promises, Promises”, “Mata Hari”, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, “Can-Can”, “Annie”, “Kiss Me Kate” and numerous others. He is the winner of multiple ASCAP awards for compositions.

 

Mr. Levenson has toured and recorded as the Orchestrator/Musical Director and Conductor of “The British Rock Symphony” and “The Ultimate Rock Symphony”. His work includes; The WHO, Roger Daltrey, Meat Loaf, Alice Cooper, Thelma Houston, Paul Rodgers, Gary Brooker, Peter Frampton, Billy Preston, Nigel Kennedy, Ann Wilson, Darlene Love, Eric Burdon & The New Animals, Yes, Billy Thorpe, KISS and The Alan Parsons Live Project. 

 

In 2018 Keith conducted the U.S. summer tour of the legendary rock opera “Tommy”, which resulted in the release of the “Tommy Orchestral,” album produced by Keith and Roger Daltrey, which went straight to the top of Billboard magazine’s classical crossover chart. The subsequent “Moving On tour” has been a massive critical success for the band and sets the gold standard for future ventures in the rock-orchestral arena for years to come.

 

Keith’s television work includes “The Wizard of Oz in Concert” which he arranged and conducted at Avery Fisher Hall in New York. Featuring Jewel, Jackson Browne, Joel Grey, Roger Daltrey, Natalie Cole, Debra Winger, Ry Cooder and The Boys Choir of Harlem.  The “Wizard of Oz” has become an annual holiday favorite on TNT, PBS and VH-1 and has been recorded by Rhino records. 

 

As a composer or lyricist/librettist Keith has written the musicals “Star-Crossed” with Jeanine Tesori, “Winchell” with Martin Charnin, “The City Suite” and the Broadway Production of “The Flowering Peach”. Television scores include the PBS Specials “Great Streets” with Randy Newman and Brian Stokes Mitchell.

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Martin Charnin (Co-Author, Lyricist) (November 24, 1934 – July 6, 2019) was an American lyricist, writer, and theatre director. Charnin's best-known work is as conceiver, director, and lyricist of the musical Annie.

 

Charnin began his theatrical career as a performer, appearing as “Big Deal”, one of the Jets in the original production of “West Side Story”. He played the role for 1,000 performances on Broadway and on the road. He wrote music and lyrics for numerous Off-Broadway and cabaret revues and went on to write, direct, and produce nightclub acts for Dionne Warwick, Nancy Wilson, Mary Travers, Larry Kert, Jose Ferrer, & Leslie Uggams.

 

The first Broadway musical for which he wrote the lyrics was the 1963 musical “Hot Spot” starring Judy Holliday, with music by Mary Rodgers. He contributed lyrics to Vernon Duke's musical “Zenda” which ran in California in 1963 but did not reach Broadway. In 1967, he wrote the lyrics for “Mata Hari”, which was produced by David Merrick. He wrote lyrics to Richard Rodgers' music and Peter Stone's book for the musical “Two by Two” (1970), which starred Danny Kaye and ran on Broadway for 10 months.

 

In the early 1970s, he worked in television where he conceived, produced, wrote and directed six television variety specials. In 1972, he won two primetime Emmy Awards for “S'Wonderful,S'Marvelous”, He supplied music and lyrics for the song “The Best Thing You've Ever Done”, sung by Barbra Streisand on her multi-platinum album “The Way We Were”

 

He made his Broadway directing debut in 1973, conceiving and directing the revue “Nash at Nine”, based on the works of Ogden Nash and starring E.G. Marshall and running for 21 performances. He next directed the revue “Music! Music!”, which had a libretto by Alan Jay Lerner. He directed “The National Lampoon Show” (1975) and its road company. The New York version starred John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, and other Saturday Night Live performers.

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He then created, wrote the lyrics for and directed “Annie” at the Goodspeed Opera House. “Annie” moved to Broadway and ran for 2,327 While directing Annie in London, he directed “Bar Mitzvah Boy” (1978), which had music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Don Black.

 

He wrote the lyrics for “I Remember Mama” (1979) with music by Richard Rodgers, and directed, wrote the lyrics for, and co-wrote the book for “The First” (1981), a musical about Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball, for which he was nominated for two Tony Awards. He directed “A Little Family Business” on Broadway in 1982, which starred Angela  Lansbury and John McMartin, and Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson in “The Flowering Peach” for Tony Randall's National Theatre, on Broadway. He wrote additional lyrics for “La Strada” (1969) and “The Madwoman of Central Park West” (1979). He directed “Cafe Crown” in 1988 at the Off-Broadway Public Theater, which subsequently transferred to Broadway in 1989. In 1989 he directed “Sid Caesar & Company” on Broadway. He directed “Laughing Matters” in 1989 at the Theater at St. Peter's Church, New York, a revue written by and starring Peter Tolan and Linda Wallem.  He wrote and directed his last original musical, “Winchell”, with Keith Levenson in 1991.

 

He conceived and directed the cabaret revue “Upstairs at O'Neals”, which ran Off-Broadway from October 1982 to July 1983 at O'Neal's restaurant. He directed and wrote the book with Douglas Bernstein and Denis Markell and music with Marvin Hamlisch, Thomas Meehan, Billy Weeden and David Finkle for “The No Frills Revue”; sketches were written by Ronny Graham among others. He directed the premiere stage adaptation of Jules Feiffer's “Carnal Knowledge” Off-Broadway at the Kaufman Theatre in 1990 and Wallach and Jackson in “Persons”.

 

After a number of years living in Seattle, he moved back to the East Coast for the 35th Anniversary revival of “Annie”, which opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre in November 2012 and ran until January 2014. He directed the revival of “​Two by Two”, starring Jason Alexander as Noah, and Tovah Feldshuh as Noah's wife. It was performed at the York Theatre in 2014 and a new Broadway production was being planned.

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