2023 Kleban Prize Winner RYAN SCOTT OLIVER was called “the future of Broadway… a major new voice in musical theatre” (Entertainment Weekly) and is “shaking up musical theater with his dark, twisted and genius work … [Oliver] could very well be musical theater’s answer to an auteur filmmaker or a gothic novelist” (Huffington Post).
He wrote the book, music and lyrics for Jasper in Deadland (book by Tony Award-nominee Hunter Foster) which was first Off-Broadway in a spring 2014 run, and then presented at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in May 2015;
as well as Hugo (directed by Christopher Wheeldon based on the Martin Scorsese film and Brian Selznick novel); Darling; Havana! (with director Warren Carlyle); Otherbody, a brief musical allegory; and Mrs. Sharp (read at Playwrights Horizons July 2009 starring Jane Krakowski, dir. by Michael Greif); and more.
Both Jasper in Deadland and 35mm: A Musical Exhibition are licensed worldwide by Concord Theatricals, and have cast recordings on the Ghostlight/Sh-k-boom label.
He is currently at work on Party of the Century, a musical based on Truman Capote‘s Black and White Ball (for Fourth Wall Theatrical),
plus an original musical commission, Tomorrow, the Island Dies,
and several adaptions of psychological horror queen Shirley Jackson‘s work.
Oliver is a Jonathan Larson Grant Recipient, Richard Rodgers Award Winner, Lortel Award Nominee, numerous ASCAP awards, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a guest lecturer at Harvard University, and the recipient of residencies at Reinbeck Writer’s Retreat, 5th Avenue Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Weston Playhouse, Cap 21, the York Theatre, The Johnny Mercer Colony at Goodspeed Opera House, Running Deer Ranch, Pace University, Harvard University, San Diego State University, Playwrights Horizons and more.
Off-Broadway and elsewhere: Disney Theatricals commission, Universal Theatricals commission, TheatreWorksUSA’s We the People, Rosie O’Donnell’s Theater Kids, and cabarets worldwide. His songbook, Music+Lyrics by Ryan Scott Oliver: Vol. 1, was published by Hal Leonard in 2011. M.F.A. Musical Theatre Writing NYU; B.A. Music Composition, UCLA. Songbooks and sheet music available at ryanscottoliver.com.
Oliver is also developing a southern Gothic thriller set in small-town Missouri, 1945 entitled We Foxes (commissioned by Broadway Across America);
Tethered with Adam Chanler-Berat (commissioned by Grove Entertainment, 2015);
and a contemporary “marriage play,” Three Points of Contact.
He is represented by Di Glazer at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). His morbidly optimistic musings may be followed on all platforms @ryanscottoliver.
Life is dark. Follow the light.
