ROMEO AND JULIET - Stratford Festival

ABOUT THE COMPOSER AND WRITERS
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD (1904-1986)
Christopher Isherwood, who wrote the book on which the play is based, was born in
England in 1904. He left Cambridge University without graduating, tried briefly to study
medicine and in 1928 published All the Conspirators, followed by a second novel, The
Memorial, in 1932. From 1928 onwards, he lived mostly out of England: four years in
Berlin and five in various European countries, including Portugal, Holland, Belgium and
Denmark. His Berlin experiences produced two novels: Mr. Norris Changes Trains
(1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939). He is the author of numerous other works.
JOE MASTEROFF (b. 1919)
Joe Masteroff, who wrote the book of the musical, is a native of Philadelphia and a
graduate of Temple University. He also wrote The Warm Peninsula, which starred
Festival alumna Julie Harris, June Havoc, Farley Granger and Larry Hagman on
Broadway. Collaborating with lyricist Sheldon Harnick and composer Jerry Bock, he
wrote the musical She Loves Me, which won him a Tony Award nomination for Best
Author of a Musical.
Hal Prince hired him to write the book for a new musical being written by Kander and
Ebb based on John Van Druten’s play I Am a Camera and The Berlin Stories by
Christopher Isherwood. The musical Cabaret won the Tony for Best Musical and ran for
1,166 performances. His next and final Broadway project was 70, Girls, 70 (1971). It
closed one month after opening.
FRED EBB (1933-2004)
Musical theatre lyricist Fred Ebb was born in Manhattan. He graduated from New York
University in 1955 with a BA in English literature. Two years later he earned his MA
from Columbia University. One of Ebb’s early songs was recorded by Judy Garland,
mother of his future protégée, Liza Minnelli.
Fred Ebb and John Kander met in 1962, and after their first musical collaboration,
Golden Gate, went nowhere, they wrote a second, Flora, the Red Menace. It closed
quickly but won Liza Minnelli a Tony Award. Their second collaboration to be produced
was Cabaret – considerably more successful, running three years on Broadway.
The multi-award winning Ebb died of a heart attack at home in New York City on
September 11, 2004. When he died he was working on a new musical with Kander,
Curtains: A Backstage Murder Mystery Musical Comedy. This show’s librettist and the
orchestrator both died while the project was underway. Coincidentally, the show is about
a series of deaths during the production of a Broadway musical. Eventually Kander
finished the show, and it premièred to positive reviews in Los Angeles in July 2006 with
David Hyde Pierce, Debra Monk and Edward Hibbert starring. It transferred to Broadway
in February 2007.
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