Today on Live From the Hotel Edison, owner Suzanna Bowling sits down with Richard Maltby Jr. is an American theatre director and producer, lyricist, and screenwriter. He conceived and directed the only two musical revues to win the Tony Award for Best Musical: Ain't Misbehavin and Fosse.
Maltby and David Shire started working together as students at Yale University. Their first Broadway credit was in 1968, when their song "The Girl of the Minute" was used in the revue New Faces of 1968. In 1977 the Manhattan Theatre Club produced a revue of their earlier songs, written for other works, finally titled Starting Here, Starting Now. With composer Shire, Maltby was the director and lyricist for Baby. He was the director and lyricist for Closer Than Ever, which won Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Score and lyricist for Big. Also with Shire, he conceived and wrote the lyrics for Take Flight, which had its world premiere in July 2007 at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. He was director/co-lyricist for the American version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance, starring Bernadette Peters. He was co-lyricist for Miss Saigon (which was Tony nomination for Best Score..
He also conceived and directed Ring of Fire, a musical about Johnny Cash, which ran on Broadway, he is co-bookwriter/lyricist for The Pirate Queen (2007). He was most recently represented on Broadway as the director of the new, original musical The Story of My Life ] and received a 2009 Drama Desk Award nomination for outstanding production of a musical.
His new show About Time (a sequel to Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever), is now playing at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater, 10 West 64th Street until April 5th.