Jason Robert Brown

Wright State’s Musical Theatre Initiative and the Victoria Theatre Association welcome Tony Award-winning Broadway Composer Jason Robert Brown

Tony Award-Winning Broadway composer Jason Robert Brown comes to the Victoria Theatre on Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. for an intimate solo concert of his music, with the audience sitting right onstage with him. One of Broadway’s most exciting composers, critics have called his work “Magic, Sumptuous and Richly Melodic!” Brown appears as part of Wright State’s yearlong BROADWAY ROCKS! celebration of contemporary Musical Theatre.

JASON ROBERT BROWN is the ultimate multi-hyphenate – an equally skilled composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director and performer – best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of his generation, including the recent film, “The Last Five Years”, his debut song cycle “Songs for a New World”, and the seminal “Parade”, for which he won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Score. Brown’s most recent Broadway hit, “The Bridges of Madison County” will play at the Schuster Center as part of the Broadway Series, from March 15-20, 2016.

On Feb. 26, Brown will visit Wright State to give a lecture and discuss his work with students and the community in the Festival Playhouse. For more information on Jason Robert Brown’s Wright State University visit or The Musical Theatre Initiative, please contact Joe Deer at joe.deer@wright.edu

JASON ROBERT BROWN has been hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and his “extraordinary, jubilant theater music” (Chicago Tribune) has been heard all over the world, whether in one of the hundreds of productions of his musicals every year or in his own incendiary live performances.  The New York Times refers to Jason as “a leading member of a new generation of composers who embody high hopes for the American musical.” “The Bridges of Madison County,” a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel, will appear at the Schuster Center for the Performing Arts as part of the National Tour, directed by Bartlett Sher and starring Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale. “Honeymoon In Vegas,” based on Andrew Bergman’s film, recently played to sell-out houses on Broadway.  His major musicals as composer and lyricist include: “13”, written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish; “The Last Five Years”, which was cited as one of Time Magazine’s 10 Best of 2001 and won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics; “Parade,” written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theatre in 1998, and subsequently won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best New Musical, as well as garnering Jason the Tony Award for Original Score; and “Songs for a New World,” a theatrical song cycle, which played Off-Broadway in 1995, and has since been seen in hundreds of productions around the world. 

As a soloist or with his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, Jason has performed sold-out concerts around the world.  His first solo album, “Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes”, was named one of Amazon.com’s best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records.  His collaboration with singer Lauren Kennedy, “Songs of Jason Robert Brown”, is available on PS Classics.

For the new musical “Prince of Broadway,” a celebration of the career of Harold Prince, Jason will be serving as the musical supervisor and arranger.  He also recently signed on as part of the creative team for a new Broadway production of “King Kong”.

Visit him on the web at www.jasonrobertbrown.com.