Tommy Newman, originally from Georgia, is a book writer/composer-lyricist and a
commissioned songwriter. Tommy graduated summa cum laude from Troy University in
the Spring of 2003 with a degree in Music Education and a minor in Business Administration.
He received a Lois Garren award for composition and was nationally recognized for his work
at Troy University by the American College Theatre Festival at the Kennedy Center,
receiving a summer fellowship at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center.
In May of 2006 he graduated from NYU's
Tisch School of the Arts with an M.F.A. in
Musical Theatre Writing, where he was under
the tutelage of renowned artists such as
Bill Finn, Rachel Shenkin, Michael John LaChiusa,
Ricky Ian Gordon, Polly Pen, Mel Marvin,
Sybille Pearson, Fred Carl, Mindi Dickstein,
Robert Lee, Sarah Schlesinger, Martin Epstein,
and more.
Tommy has composed original scores for a number of regionally produced plays such as
Conecuh People and The Women of Lockerbie. He has also scored a number of films with
director Tobin Addington of the Columbia University Graduate Film Program, including Rupture,
Near the End of August, and the award winning short, Dancing Ground. Tommy is most recently
the lyricist/book writer for two full-length musicals: 29, with Gaby Alter, and Tinyard Hill,with Mark Allen.
Tinyard Hill was recently featured in the 2007 NAMT Festival of New Musicals, and will be opening
out of town sometime in the Fall of 2008. 29 was produced by Steinhardt in the spring of 2007 under
the direction of John Simpkins, and will open at Spirit of Broadway Theatre in Connecticut in the
Summer of 2008.
