Adam Guettel

Adam Guettel
Born	(1964-12-16) December 16, 1964 New York City, U.S.
Genres	Musical theatre
Occupation(s)	Composer, lyricist
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Nonesuch / Elektra Records

Adam Guettel (/ˈɡɛtəl/; born December 16, 1964) is an American composer-lyricist of musical theater and opera. The grandson of musical theatre composer Richard Rodgers, he is best known for his musicals Floyd Collins (Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, Obie Award for Best Music), The Light in the Piazza, (Tony Award for Best Original Score and Tony Award for Best Orchestrations), and Days of Wine and Roses (Frederick Loewe Award for Dramatic Composition).

Biography

Early years

Guettel was born on December 16, 1964, to film executive Henry Guettel and writer/composer Mary Rodgers, daughter of famed composer Richard Rodgers, and was raised on the Upper West Side of New York City. He performed as a boy soprano soloist in operas including Pelléas et Mélisande and The Magic Flute, both at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera, and in another production of Pelléas with the Santa Fe Opera. He was also slated to play Amahl in the film remake of Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors". He later claimed that he ended his career as a boy soprano at age 13, by faking that his voice was changing. Guettel played bass guitar in rock groups, but felt he wasn't good enough at the instrument, and that even if he was "even a bass solo is not that satisfying. It is like putting a sail on a car." Soon, turning to musical theatre composition, he was mentored by Stephen Sondheim. Guettel recalled how as a 14-year-old boy he showed Sondheim his work. Guettel was "crestfallen" since he had come in "sort of all puffed up thinking [he] would be rained with compliments and things", which was not the case since Sondheim had some "very direct things to say". Later, Sondheim wrote and apologized to Guettel for being "not very encouraging" when he was actually trying to be "constructive". Years later, Sondheim would later put Guettel's song "The Riddle Song" from Floyd Collins on his list of "songs he wished he'd written".

Guettel attended Phillips Exeter Academy, School Year Abroad (SYA France) and Interlochen Center for the Arts. He attended Yale University, where he met frequent collaborator, Tina Landau, and connected with another collaborator, who had graduated earlier, Ted Sperling. While at Yale, Guettel took time off from school to work as John Mauceri's assistant and the DX7 consultant on the broadway musical Song and Dance.

Career

In the 1990s, he developed two projects with Sperling and Landau. The first, Floyd Collins, was originally staged at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, in 1994, where Guettel not only wrote the music and lyrics, but also starred as Floyd's brother, Homer. On the subject of adapting the true story of Floyd Collins, Guettel stated "We're true to the spirit of the story, but we are circling it for the most dramatic angle". The musical opened at Playwrights Horizons on February 9, 1996. In The New York Times review of the show, critic Ben Brantley noted "Mr. Guettel establishes himself as a young composer of strength and sophistication, weaving strands from the Americana of Copland and the uneasy dissonance of Sondheim". Later, Guettel would say that it was his time working on Floyd which made him certain that he would spend his life writing music for the theatre.

The second project he developed with Landau and Sperling was a song cycle titled Saturn Returns (recorded as Myths and Hymns). The piece musicalizes pieces of mythology, including the stories of Hero and Leander, Icarus, Medusa, as well as classic hymns. Discussing its genesis, Guettel stated "I had been writing these myths just because I was just starting out as a writer, and you don't know what to write. I did stuff that was tried and true. That was enough to keep me busy. Then I came across this book in an old antique shop... And it was just the words to a bunch of hymns... For some reason out of this Upper West Side Jew comes all of this music to these hymn lyrics". At first, Guettel was adapting the hymns and myths as separate projects, until Landau suggested they would work well together. "And we realized in some ways that the hymns are who we would have ourselves be, and the myths are basically who we are, and that they can kind of antiphonally talk to each other", said Guettel, in a 2021 New York Times interview on the online MasterVoices production of the piece. The piece was performed at The Public Theater and was later recorded by Nonesuch records with performances by Billy Porter, Mandy Patinkin, Kristin Chenoweth, and Guettel himself.

Other early works include an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Love's Fire, and more. Early on, Guettel's music was almost immediately characterized by its complexity and chromaticism. His major influences include Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Benjamin Britten, and Stevie Wonder. Stephen Sondheim has referred to Guettel's work as "dazzling." Guettel's songs have been recorded by such artists as Audra McDonald and Brian d'Arcy James. He also contributed original scores to several documentary films, including Arguing the World and Jack: The Last Kennedy Film. In 1999, he performed a concert evening of his own work at New York's Town Hall.

In 2004, Guettel contributed vocals to Jessica Molaskey's P.S. Classics album Make Believe, dueting with Molaskey on his grandfather's song "Glad To Be Unhappy".

After Floyd Collins, Guettel reportedly hoped to work on a love story. His mother suggested an adaptation that she had once pitched to her father- The Light in the Piazza by Elizabeth Spencer. After six years working on the project, Guettel's musical The Light in the Piazza opened on Broadway in 2005. The show, which starred Victoria Clark and Kelli O'Hara, met with mixed critical notices, but on June 5, 2005, Adam Guettel won the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations.

He spent much of the period from 2005 to 2007 working on a musical adaptation of The Princess Bride with original screenwriter William Goldman. As of January 2007, Guettel had written the music for ten songs for the project. An orchestral suite from the score was performed at the Hollywood Bowl in November 2006, and Lincoln Center conducted a workshop of Bride in January 2007. The project was abandoned when Goldman reportedly demanded 75 percent of the author's share, even though Guettel was writing both the music and the lyrics.

Guettel also writes incidental music for plays, as well as film scores. He has written music for plays including The Legend of Oedipus (1988) and Lydie Breeze (2000). In summer 2007, Guettel composed incidental music for a production of Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya at the Intiman Playhouse in Seattle, Washington. In 2019, Guettel's score for Aaron Sorkin's play To Kill A Mockingbird was nominated for a Tony Award.

In July 2009, the Signature Theatre of Arlington, Virginia, commissioned Guettel to write a new musical for their 2011–2012 season, under the auspices of their American Musical Voices Project. Currently in the works, this will be a musical adaptation of the Danny Boyle film Millions. Other current projects include an opera based on the short stories of Washington Irving and the opera, The Invisible Man, commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera.

In January 2023, Atlantic Theater Company announced an eight-week world premiere production of Guettel's adaptation of Days of Wine and Roses, with music, lyrics, and orchestrations by Guettel, book by Craig Lucas (Guettel's collaborator on The Light in the Piazza, almost 20 years previously), and direction by Michael Greif. The production starred Kelli O'Hara and Brian D'Arcy James and was the first full production of a new musical by Guettel since Piazza.Days of Wine and Roses moved to Broadway, premiering on January 6, 2024 for a 16-week run.

Shortly after Days of Wine and Roses closed on Broadway, it was announced that Guettel's musical, Millions would make its world premiere at the Alliance Theater. The production will be directed by Guettel's longtime collaborator, Bartlett Sher.

In June 2024, it was announced that Floyd Collins would come to Broadway as a part of Lincoln Center Theater's 40th Anniversary season.

Another major aspect of Guettel's career is his work as a teacher. Since 1995, he has taught masterclasses and seminars in musical theatre performance and songwriting, considering this to be an important complement to his work as a composer. He has led such classes at DePauw University, DePaul University, New York University, Pace University, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Emerson College, Elon University, The Boston Conservatory, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University, Wagner College and many others.

Guettel received an honorary doctorate from Lehman College in 2007, and was made an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in 2019.

Major Works

• Floyd Collins ran Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, February 9 – March 24, 1996. Music and Lyrics by Guettel. Book, Direction, Additional Lyrics by Tina Landau. Music Direction by Ted Sperling. Orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin. The show is coming to Broadway's Vivian Beaumont Theater in 2025.
• Myths and Hymns (also known as Saturn Returns) – A Song Cycle, the show ran in concert at The Public Theater, March 31 – April 26, 1998. An album was recorded featuring Mandy Patinkin, Kristin Chenoweth, and Billy Porter. A virtual production was mounted by MasterVoices in 2020.
• The Princess Bride – For several years, Guettel developed an adaptation of The Princess Bride alongside original screenwriter William Goldman. A suite of songs from the show was performed at The Hollywood Bowl in 2006. After contractural negotiations failed between Guettel and Goldman, the show was scrapped.
• The Light in the Piazza ran on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, March 17, 2005 – July 2, 2006. Music and Lyrics by Guettel. Book by Craig Lucas. Directed by Bartlett Sher. Orchestrations by Guettel, Coughlin, and Sperling. Music Direction by Sperling. The production was broadcast on PBS, and went on a national tour. There have been several other productions of the show, including one starring Renee Fleming which has been remounted twice, as well as a 2023 production at New York City Center.
• Days of Wine and Roses ran on Broadway at Studio 54, January 6 – March 31, 2024. Music and Lyrics by Guettel. Book by Craig Lucas. Direction by Michael Greif. Orchestrations by Guettel and Jamie Lawrence. Music Direction by Kimberly Grigsby.
• Millions, based on the Danny Boyle film. Music and Lyrics by Guettel. Book by Bob Martin. Direction by Bartlett Sher. The musical is having its world premiere at the Alliance Theater in 2025.

Guettel has also been reported to be working on several other pieces, including an opera based on the works of Washington Irving and a musical based on H. G. Wells's The Invisible Man.

Family

Guettel is the son of composer, author and Juilliard School chairman Mary Rodgers, who died on June 26, 2014, and grandson of legendary musical theater composer Richard Rodgers. His father, Henry Guettel (died October 7, 2013), was a film executive and was the executive director of the Theatre Development Fund.

When Guettel took up music composition in his mid-teens, he was encouraged by his family. His mother said that she offered him advice for around a year. "After that, he was so far beyond anything I could ever have dreamed of, I just backed off." Richard Rodgers, who died when Guettel was 15, overheard an early composition, said he liked it, and asked him to play it louder. Guettel has qualified the compliment, noting that "He was literally on his deathbed on the other side of the living-room wall." In his high school and collegiate years and into his early twenties, Guettel worked as a rock and jazz musician, singing and playing bass, before realizing "that writing for character and telling stories through music was something that I really loved to do, and that allowed me to express love".

Influences

In an interview, Guettel stated a portion of his influences that included I. M. Pei, Louis Kahn, Vincent Scully, Jane Jacobs, Igor Stravinsky, Stevie Wonder, Adam de la Halle, Harry Nilsson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Björk, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Benjamin Britten, William Inge, Stephen Sondheim, Jody Williams, and Marvin Gaye.

External links

• Adam Guettel at the Internet Broadway Database
• Adam Guettel at IMDb
• Adam Guettel Papers at the Library of Congress
• "Interview", Studio 360 (radio program), 2005, archived from the original on 2009-05-15.
• Frank J. Oteri (August 7, 2006), "Adam Guettel in conversation with Frank J. Oteri" (includes video), NewMusicBox (cover).
• "Interview", American Theatre Magazine, October 2003, archived from the original on 2010-06-19.
• Adam Guettel's website