Musical Theatre
As a pit pianist, Shire played for the original productions of both The Fantasticks and Funny Girl, eventually serving as Barbra Streisand’s accompanist for several years. He also intermittently conducted and arranged for her (most notably for her television specials Color Me Barbra and The Belle of Fourteenth Street), and over a period of several years she recorded five of his songs.
Shire's musical theatre work, always in collaboration with lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr. includes the two off-Broadway reviews Starting Here, Starting Now (Grammy nomination for Best Cast Album) and Closer Than Ever (Outer Critic's Circle Award for Best Musical) and the two Broadway shows Baby (Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Score) and Big (Tony nomination for Best Score). All of these shows have had hundreds of regional and stock productions worldwide. A new musical entitled Take Flight premiered in London at the Menier Chocolate Factory in July 2007, with a separate production in Tokyo in November 2007. Previously concert versions were performed in Australia and Russia.
He recently completed A Stream of Voices, a one-act opera, with libretto by Gene Scheer, for the Colorado Children's Chorale, which premiered in June 2008 in Denver.
On October 27, 2012, the Broadway-style musical Loving the Silent Tears will premiere in Los Angeles, including some songs composed by Shire.
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Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or theatre:
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)