Profile of Charles Strouse on Famous Like Me

Charles Strouse (born 7 June 1928) is an American composer and three-time winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical.

Strouse was born in New York. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and has studied with Aaron Copeland and Nadia Boulanger. After an early career as a piano player for dance bands and then theatre rehearsals, he went on to write music ranging from Broadway hits and movie scores to chamber and orchestral works, a piano concerto and operas.

He has collaborating with Lee Adams, Alan Jay Lerner, Martin Charnin, and Sammy Cahn. His best-known musicals include:

• Bye Bye Birdie (1963), winner of a Tony Award and the London Critics Best Foreign Musical Award
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• Applause (1970), winner of a Tony Award and the London Critics Best Foreign Musical Award
• It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman (1966)
• The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968)
• There Was a Crooked Man (1970)
• Annie (1977), winner of a Tony Award and two Grammy Awards
• Just Tell Me What You Want (1980)
• Charlie & Algernon (1981), nominated for a Tony Best Score award
• Nick and Nora (1993)

Bye Bye Birdie was made into a film starring Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, and Ann Margaret in 1963, as was Annie in 1982. Music written originally for film by Strouse appears in:

• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968)
• There Was a Crooked Man (1970)
• Just Tell Me What You Want (1980)
• Ishtar (1987)
• All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

Strouse is also the creator of the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop and co-writer of the 1958 top-ten hit Born Too Late with Fred Tobias. His opera Nightingale based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen has been performed worldwide.

Charles Strouse is currently working on a musical called "You Never Know" which opened in Providence RI on April 28th 2005.

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