Carrie The Musical

Lawrence D. Cohen’s first feature script was his adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel, Carrie (1976). His screenplay for the classic Brian de Palma film earned him an Edgar Award nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. After beginning his career as a film/theater critic and essayist for a number of leading periodicals, he worked as an assistant to famed Broadway director-choreographer Michael Bennett on the latter’s Tony Award-winning Twigs, as well as the musical Seesaw. While working for film and TV producer David Susskind, he discovered the script of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and went on to become Production Executive of the 1975 Martin Scorsese film. Continuing his ongoing relationship with Stephen King in 1990, he wrote the 4-hour teleplay of IT which USA Today called “the scariest movie ever made for TV.” It and his subsequent adaptation of King’s The Tommyknockers (1993) became two of the network’s highest-rated miniseries. In 2007, he was reunited with the Master of Horror with his adaptation of The End of the Whole Mess for TNT’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes anthology series; its script was nominated by The Writers Guild of America for Best Drama. He is also credited as co-writer of the 2013 feature remake of Carrie. Among his current projects as screenwriter plus co-producer with partner Gore, he is developing 90 Days, an original drama with songs, as well as a Hitchcockian romantic thriller set in New York and Buenos Aires. Also in the works is a chronicle charting his singular relationship to Carrie over the years, entitled What Were They Thinking: Carrie — From Book to Movie to Musical…And Back Again.

In 1981, Michael won two Academy Awards for the movie Fame; one for Best Original Score, and a second for Best Song with lyricist Dean Pitchford. He was also nominated for “Out Here On My Own” from the same film, which he co-wrote with his sister, Lesley Gore, making three nominations that year. Also for Fame, he won a Golden Globe for the title song, and was nominated for a Grammy. The movie’s soundtrack sold in excess of 7 million copies worldwide. In 1983, he was again nominated for a Best Score Oscar for James L. Brooks’ Terms of Endearment. His instrumental version of the movie’s theme went Top 5 on the Adult Contemporary charts. He composed the original score for John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink in 1986, and was a major contributor to the musical underscore for James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News in 1987. Other scores include Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life, Anthony Minghella’s Mr. Wonderful, The Butcher’s Wife, and Superstar. As a songwriter, he collaborated with lyricist Pitchford on the song “Never” for Herbert Ross’ Footloose. With lyricist Lynn Ahrens, he wrote two original songs for Todd Graff’s Camp. Notable in Michael’s songwriting credits is the music for Whitney Houston’s multi-platinum seller, “All The Man That I Need”, which simultaneously reached #1 on the pop, adult contemporary, and rhythm and blues charts. Artists including Luther Vandross, Patti Labelle and L.L. Cool J. have performed his compositions. Michael served as the Producer for a series of nine recordings for the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. His The Gershwins in Hollywood won Germany’s prestigious Deutsche Schalplatten Award. His Rodgers and Hammerstein’s CD of The King and I starring Julie Andrews and Ben Kingsley received critical acclaim, was Number One on Billboard’s Classical Crossover Album chart for 17 weeks, and remained in the Top Ten for almost a year. As the album’s producer, he was nominated for a Grammy and won The Billboard Award for top Crossover Recording. In addition to Executive Producing ABC’s acclaimed 3-hour Special Event telefilm of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific starring Glenn Close and Harry Connick, Jr., he produced all the music for the film and its soundtrack recording. As a solo recording artist, he composed and performed “October Moon” for Song Without Words II for Windham Hill. In addition to developing a slate of original film and television projects with partner Lawrence D. Cohen for their production company, White Cap Productions, he is working on a solo piano album of his own film themes and original pop compositions.

Born and raised in Hawaii and graduated from Yale University, Dean Pitchford performed off- and on-Broadway (Godspell; Pippin) before turning to songwriting, screenwriting and directing.

Dean was nominated for four Academy Awards (winning the 1981 Best Song Oscar for “Fame,” co-written w/ Michael Gore), three Golden Globes (winning for “Fame”), eight Grammys and two Tonys; his songs – recorded by such artists as Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Cher, Peter Allen, LL Cool J, Kenny Loggins, Hugh Jackman, Dolly Parton, Bette Midler and Martina McBride – have sold over 70 million records.

The musical stage adaptation (w/ Walter Bobbie) of his original screenplay for Footloose ran for more than seven hundred performances on Broadway and is now seen all over the world. Dean also provided the lyrics for “Carrie, the Musical” which was first produced in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company – first in England and then on Broadway – and was then revived in 2012 by New York’s MCC Theater. Major productions have recently been seen in London (Southwark Playhouse) and Los Angeles (The Los Angeles Theatre).

Dean’s middle-grade novels, The Big One-Oh and Captain Nobody, are published by Putnam/Penguin; his performances of their audiobook recordings (Listening Library/Random House) were both nominated for Grammys. His third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, was published to acclaim in 2013, and Dean voiced that audiobook for Audible.com.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father’s family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen’s grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men’s magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale (“The Glass Floor”) to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men’s magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.

In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co. accepted the novel Carrie for publication. On Mother’s Day of that year, Stephen learned from his new editor at Doubleday, Bill Thompson, that a major paperback sale would provide him with the means to leave teaching and write full-time.

At the end of the summer of 1973, the Kings moved their growing family to southern Maine because of Stephen’s mother’s failing health. Renting a summer home on Sebago Lake in North Windham for the winter, Stephen wrote his next-published novel, originally titled Second Coming and then Jerusalem’s Lot, before it became ‘Salem’s Lot, in a small room in the garage. During this period, Stephen’s mother died of cancer, at the age of 59.

Carrie was published in the spring of 1974. That same fall, the Kings left Maine for Boulder, Colorado. They lived there for a little less than a year, during which Stephen wrote The Shining, set in Colorado. Returning to Maine in the summer of 1975, the Kings purchased a home in the Lakes Region of western Maine. At that house, Stephen finished writing The Stand, much of which also is set in Boulder. The Dead Zone was also written in Bridgton.

In 1977, the Kings spent three months of a projected year-long stay in England, cut the sojourn short and returned home in mid-December, purchasing a new home in Center Lovell, Maine. After living there one summer, the Kings moved north to Orrington, near Bangor, so that Stephen could teach creative writing at the University of Maine at Orono. The Kings returned to Center Lovell in the spring of 1979. In 1980, the Kings purchased a second home in Bangor, retaining the Center Lovell house as a summer home.

Stephen and Tabitha now spend winters in Florida and the remainder of the year at their Bangor and Center Lovell homes.

The Kings have three children: Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill and Owen Phillip, and four grandchildren.

Stephen is of Scots-Irish ancestry, stands 6’4″ and weighs about 200 pounds. He is blue-eyed, fair-skinned, and has thick, black hair, with a frost of white most noticeable in his beard, which he sometimes wears between the end of the World Series and the opening of baseball spring training in Florida. Occasionally he wears a moustache in other seasons. He has worn glasses since he was a child.

He has put some of his college dramatic society experience to use doing cameos in several of the film adaptations of his works as well as a bit part in a George Romero picture, Knightriders. Joe Hill King also appeared in Creepshow, which was released in 1982. Stephen made his directorial debut, as well as writing the screenplay, for the movie Maximum Overdrive (an adaptation of his short story “Trucks”) in 1985.

Stephen and Tabitha provide scholarships for local high school students and contribute to many other local and national charities.

Stephen is the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the 2014 National Medal of Arts.

Originally written by Tabitha King, updated by Marsha DeFilippo.