Sam Willmott (center)
Sam Carner
Sam Willmott
by Miriam Spritzer with photos & video by Magda Katz
On Monday June 22nd, the Kleban Prize for Musical Theatre celebrated it’s 25th year. The award was developed in order to help promising writers when they needed support, especially in the early stages of their careers. In hopes of honoring the brightest developing talents in song writing, the Kleban Prize is unique for it recognizes the promise of creativity in addition to the artists’ previous achievements.
This year’s recipients of the honor, and the prize, were Sam Willmott for most promising Theatre Lyricist and Sam Carner for Most Promising Musical Theatre Librettist.
In a very intimate cocktail reception, the award recipients were able to showcase some of their work and socialize with some of the industry giants such as board member Sheldon Harnick, former judge Stephen Schwartz, Maury Yeston, Tony Sheldon and previous recipient John Wiedman who attended the event.
Previous recipients of the annual prize include Jason Robert Brown, Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez.
