“On the Wheels of a Dream”

The American Songbook Gala Celebrating Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty

By Alix Cohen

Lynn Ahrens was working as a copywriter when invited to write a song for children’s television. A burgeoning career developed. Stephen Flaherty, knowing he wanted to write musicals at 12, moved to New York City from Pittsburgh.The two met at BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop in 1982. Participants wrote with strangers. Theirs was collaboration kismet.

Lynn writes to time, place, character, and theatrical moment, but also to be understood-not naively or talking down to an audience. She’s accessible. It’s what made her so successful at kids’ songs. Lyrical compromise is rare. Every word passes through both heart and mind. She knows where vocal breath will fall.

Stephen sounded something like Sondheim back then gradually developing his own distinctive voice. It would not be inappropriate to say the work is in the same mindful family. He too writes to parameters, drawing from rich musical history, making original choices. His music paints, manifests, and touches one.

The first produced Ahrens and Flaherty collaboration was one-act children’s show, The Emperor’s New Clothes – TheatreWorks USA in 1985. Lucky Stiff arrived three years later at what used to be Playwrights Horizons’ tiny theater. Once on This Island followed, then moved to Broadway garnering eight Tony Award nominations.

Island was produced at Circle in the Square in 2017. Instead of being swallowed by its elaborate production, it emerged marvelous, winning the 2018 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Ragtime (original Broadway production 1998) opens at Lincoln Center October 16.

An Ahrens/Flaherty musical is bound to intrigue, illuminate, and move as well as entertain. Selection of subject matter is thoughtful, variety of style remarkable. The pair has won a multitude of awards, expanding into film and television.

“We write everything together in the same room. We talk, we laugh, we argue, we pace, we eat, we write.” (Lynn Ahrens)
We’re very different people, but we share a sensibility. We trust each other’s instincts.” (Stephen Flaherty)

Producer/Director Susan Stroman eloquently presents Cabaret Scenes-ASA Lifetime Achievement Award to the collaborators calling them “treasures of the American theater, each show a new shade of humanity.”

“You know what they always say about life achievement- get off the stage,” Lynn quips. ..”Forty-two years of partnership (with Stephen) is a life achievement in itself…I am blessed in my friends…”

“You don’t need a fancy institution to develop a love of this,” Stephen comments… “If it’s exciting to us, we hope it will be exciting to others…” Both collaborators are modest. Both thank their tolerant husbands.

As well as their awards, Lynn and Stephen are gifted blow-ups of the marvelous Ken Fallin caricatures used on the cover of the program.

The shows: Lucky Stiff, Once on This Island, My Favorite Year, Ragtime, Seussical, A Man of No Importance, Dessa Rose, The Glorious Ones, Rocky, Anastasia, Legacy: Two Song Cycles, Knoxville, Little Dancer, A Christmas Carol (Ahrens), Loving Repeating , In Your Arms, Neil Simon’s Proposals (Flaherty)

Also tonight, The Bill Sensenbrenner Dream Maker Award is presented to Jamie deRoy by long time editor of Cabaret Scenes, treasurer of ASA, Frank Dain. Sensenbrenner was the engine behind the ASA’s expanding education program, a contributor to its soul, and Dain’s partner 33 years.

The recipient is an actress, host, vocalist, producer (15 Tonys and counting, plus Drama Desk, Drama League, Audience Choice, and MAC Awards), collector of art and artists, philanthropist. Her fifty-plus years in entertainment and unbridled, unjaded enthusiasm continue to promote and support theater and music. Recently, under Jamie’s watch, One thousand school kids were treated to Buena Vista Social Club with access after.

“Creativity is our life’s blood. I just hope I never lose the desire or ability to do this…I highly recommend a life of music and theater.” Jamie deRoy

https://theaterlife.com/the-ubiquitous-jamie-deroy/   My profile of Jamie deRoy

Rarely does one witness an entire show where one vocal is as outstanding as the next. This is one.

A.J. Shively, who has played the role he sings tonight, offers “Streets of Dublin” (A Man of No Importance) with a terrific Irish accent and demonstrative affection for the city he conjures.

Elizabeth Stanley’s “Something Beautiful” (from a concert evening) “…to make something beautiful before I go…” is just that, earnest and ethereal, bubbling up like a crystalline spring.

Ann Kittredge leads 5th graders from PS 205 Bayside, Queens in “It’s Possible” (Seusical, the Musical) with exuberant song and choreographed movement. The kids are charming. The artist then performs “Garden”, a balladic scene-in- one that grants cultivated flora with all the attributes of a loving partner.

Executive Director of ASA Carolyn Montgomery zealously describes a group from the education division visiting a grade school, schlepping an amp and keyboard in the 8:30 am rain. By the second verse of “On the Wheels of a Dream”, initially apathetic kids were attentive. “It only takes 60 minutes to break through the walls of rock and pop,” she tells us. “Music grows the brain, makes better test takers, critical thinkers, better humans. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a third-grader from Harlem sing Cole Porter using the word ennui and knowing what it means!”

Lillias White, Kecia Lewis, Lili Thomas

Lillias White recalls her Broadway role as Erzulie, the Goddess of Love for “Come Down From the Tree” (Once on This Island). Warm and earthy, the artist creates a soft (emotional) place to land. Also from Once, Kecia Lewis’s “Mama Will Provide” combines accent, growl, emphasis, and smooth moooves to create a rhythmic, fringed sarong of music. We chair dance.

Currently in development, Knoxville is a musical adaptation of James Agee’s A Death in the Family. Hannah Elless surprises us with a bluesy “His Strength”, as if predestined to grief and fighting back. She has pith and presence.

Songs from Lucky Stiff include Nikki Renée Daniels’ tender, sincere, “Times Like This” “…a girl could use a dog…” and a two-hander of “Rita’s Confessions” replete with dialogue by Janine LaManna and foil Robert Anthony Jones. The latter is hysterical. Whole characters occupy the stage with comic timing and buoyant chemistry.

My Favorite Year is represented by Nathan Salstone’s rendition of “Larger Than Life,” a fan’s adoration of flamboyant, Errol Flynn–style movie star Alan Swann before his glory days are behind him. Salstone is credibly sweet and ingenuous .

Kate Baldwin’s interpretation of “Back to Before” (Ragtime) rides rolling piano waves: “There was a time/Our happiness seemed never ending./I was so sure/That where we were heading was right”…Its gravitas and longing fill the hall. She shimmers.

The anthemic “Make Them Hear You” (Ragtime) is delivered by Alton Fitzgerald White with heart, pride, and passion. “Teach every child to raise his voice…Make them hear you!” A song for the era.

Congratulations arrive on screen from Keith Lockhart, Conductor of The Boston Pops.

A beautifully produced evening of virtuosity and imagination.

Photos by James Conor Weiss

On the Wheels of A Dream
The American Songbook Gala Celebrating Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty
October 6, 2025 Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center
Daniel Green- MD/Piano; Adam Wolf- Percussion

Kaufman Music Center 129 West 67th Street https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/
Cabaret Scenes https://cabaretscenes.org/
The American Songbook Association https://americansongbookassociation.org/