CREATIVES
RAY LESLEE (composer)
THEATRE: Avenue X, the award-winning a cappella musical at Playwrights Horizons in New York and over 50 productions around the world, including Philadelphia's Wilma Theatre where it earned 10 Barrymore Awards (including Best Musical); Standup Shakespeare, directed by Mike Nichols on Broadway, featured F. Murray Abraham, Alfred Molina, and Alice Ripley; A Steady Rain at the Guthrie and Alliance Theatre in 2015; Palestine at New York Theatre Workshop; Educating Rita and Little Egypt with Steppenwolf; The Three Musketeers, national tour with the Acting Company; Twelfth Night with Theatre for a New Audience; Night of the Iguana, at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; and The Notebook of Trigorin at ACT in Seattle; to name a few.
CONCERT HALL: Maya Songs, the poems of Maya Angelou, with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Romeo & Juliet for Orchestra & Actors, commissioned by The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; A Chamber Christmas Carol, for 5 musicians and 5 actors, at the Morgan Library Museum; Nocturne for Violin & Piano (Innova Records); Shakespeare Songs and Andante For Strings with the Antara Chamber Orchestra at St. Peter’s Church; to name a few. His music has been recorded by RCA Victor, BMG Classics, Albany Records, Innova Records, the Folger Shakespeare Library and many others.
HONORS: Barrymore Awards, LA Ovation Awards, Dallas Critics, Helen Hayes Award; The Richard Rodgers Award (twice for Avenue X); The Garland Award (Best Score for A Christmas Carol in San Diego); Winner of the 2012 national composers competition "Art Songs for the 21st Century" with the Center City Opera Theater in Philadelphia. Fellowships in music composition from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Yaddo, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the ASCAP Special Award annually since 1982. In 1997 he received The Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theatre Award for lifetime achievement and was honored at Lincoln Center.
Philip S. Goodman (book/lyrics)
Philip appeared in the all-soldier musical, Take a Break and as Oedipus in CBS’s Long Before Shakespeare. He directed Brian Donlevy in a summer tour of King of Hearts, and was Advance Director of the Patsy Kelly-Jack Albertson musical revue, High Time. At The Actors Studio, he directed his own plays, Love Is a Candy Cane and This Notoriety Business.
He directed the movie, We Shall Return, starring Cesar Romero, and won Video Review’s Award as Best Director 1983 for the mystery, Murder, Anyone? (Paul Gleason, Lea Thompson), also Best Video Program of the year. His documentaries, Pacific Crossroads, Adventures In The China Trade, and Japan Reaches For The 21st Century were broadcast on public TV. He wrote The North Pole: The Story and the Movie, Scarlett: the Making of an Epic, The Making of Return to Lonesome Dove, and Weather Control for Omni: the New Frontier (Peter Ustinov).
In television he wrote plays for Rocky King, Danger (Caroll Baker, Jack Lord), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Carol Lynley), NBC Matinee Theater, Johnny Staccato (John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands), Hawk (Burt Reynolds), and three plays for the Peabody Award-winning NBC series, Profiles in Courage: John Peter Altgeld (Burgess Meredith), Andrew Johnson (Walter Mathau), and Grover Cleveland (Carroll O'Connor). Three of his radio plays were produced at the Museum of TV and Radio in New York City. His screenplays, School of Assassins and Road Kill are currently under option.
He has also produced, written and directed hundreds of education, information, and commercial film and video productions, including some 40-odd films on growing cotton and other crops on farm locations throughout the U.S.
Goodman is a member of the Playwrights and Directors Unit at The Actors Studio.