Alan Menken (Composer) Stage credits include Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, A Christmas Carol, King David, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Real Life Funnies, The Little Mermaid, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Weird Romance and Der Glocker von Notre Dame. Film credits include: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Newsies, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules and Home on the Range. Other achievements: A Billboard #1 album (Pocahontas) and #1 single ("A Whole New World"). Awards include: eight Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, 10 GRAMMYS, the London Evening Standard Award, the Olivier, the New York Drama Critics Award, the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. Upcoming projects include stage adaptations of The Little Mermaid and Leap of Faith, live-action film adaptations of A Christmas Carol and The Hunchback of Notre Dame plus the film Noel.

Howard Ashman (Lyricist) wrote the lyrics for the Disney animated films The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin (three songs), and served as producer on The Little Mermaid and Executive Producer on Beauty and the Beast. With composer Alan Menken, he received two Academy Awards and two Golden Globes for Best Song ("Beauty and the Beast" and "Under the Sea") and four Grammy Awards. He received an Academy Award nomination with Mr. Menken for "Friend Like Me" from Aladdin. As author, lyricist and director for the stage musical Little Shop of Horrors, which ran for five years in New York and has been produced worldwide, Mr. Ashman received two Outer Critics' Circle Awards, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a London Evening Standard Award and a Drama Desk Award. For his screenplay version of Little Shop of Horrors, Mr. Ashman received a nomination from the Screen Writers Guild and "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" was nominated (with Mr. Menken) for an Academy Award for Best song. He was author, lyricist and director of Smile for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Book. His other credits include: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; The Confirmation (his only full-length play); Artistic Director: WPA Theatre (1976–1982). Born on May 17, 1950 in Baltimore, Mr. Ashman died at age 40 of complications due to AIDS on March 14, 1991 in New York City.

Tim Rice (Lyricist) was born in 1944. From 1956-1965 he wanted to be Elvis. Then he met Andrew Lloyd Webber whose musical ambitions were in theatre rather than rock. They joined forces as one could knock out a decent tune, the other had a way with words. They wrote four shows together. The first, The Likes of Us (1965-6), was never performed, but Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1969-71) and Evita (1976-78) became, and indeed remain, hugely successful all around the world, on both stage and screen. Feeling certain that they could never top this lot, the pair went their separate ways in the early eighties, whereupon ALW immediately topped that lot with Cats. TR then wrote Blondel (1983), a medieval romp, with Stephen Oliver, which ran for a year in London, but not for long anywhere else. In 1986 came Chess, written with ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. Chess had a healthy UK run but flopped on Broadway in 1988, the New York Times bloke simply not getting it. In 1989 Rice translated the famous French Berger-Plamondon musical Starmania into English which merely resulted in a hit album in France. In the 90s he worked primarily with the Disney empire, contributing lyrics to the movies Aladdin (music Alan Menken) and The Lion King, (music Elton John and Hans Zimmer) and to the stage shows Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menken), The Lion King and Aida (both Sir Elton). In lunch breaks he wrote the words for Cliff Richard's theatrical extravaganza Heathcliff (music John Farrar) which toured the UK in 1995-96. He is currently reworking an operatic musical he has written with Alan Menken (King David), and on new treatments, for both stage and screen, of Chess, the New York Times bloke having been replaced. He also has a new idea which may or may not see the light of day. He has won many awards, mainly for the wrong things, or for simply turning up. He lives in England, has three children, his own cricket team and a knighthood (that's Sir Tim to you).

Jim Luigs (Book Adapter and Lyricist) wrote Spread Eagle, which was produced at the WPA Theatre in New York, starring Brian Murray. He was commissioned by the Seattle Opera to create the book and lyrics for Das Barbecü, a country-western spoof of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, which was subsequently produced off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre, where it received three Drama Desk nominations and was also nominated as “Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical” by the Outer Critics Circle. He adapted the book and wrote additional lyrics for the musical, Disney's Aladdin Junior. Regionally, his plays and musicals have been commissioned and/or produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville, ACT (Seattle), Asolo Theatre (Sarasota), Center Stage Dallas Theatre Center, George Street Playhouse and Goodspeed-at-Chester, among others.

Bryan Louiselle (Music Adapter) has composed music for the films Sacred Space, Saints and Strangers and Prisoners of Hope; the play Adult Entertainment (with lyricist Elaine May); The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular; Red Memories for The New York Stage and Film Company; Simon Gray’s The Late Middle Classes for The Williamstown Theatre Festival; the Pearl Theatre Company; Silver Burdett Ginn’s Making Music music textbook series; and two song cycles—A Bestiary and My Night Forest. His arrangements and orchestrations include music for Broadway’s Best from Bravo, the Yale Tercentennial Celebration, the CD Anthems in Disguise, the Broadway musical The Red Shoes, two Miss America Pageants, two Kennedy Center Presidential Inaugural Galas, the 1988 Super Bowl Half Time Show, the Cole Porter 100th Birthday Celebration at Carnegie Hall, Musical Theatre Works, and TheatreWorks USA. From 1998 to 2005, Mr. Louiselle served as a conductor, arranger, composer, lyricist, producer, orchestrator and vocalist for Silver Burdett Ginn’s Making Music music-education textbook and CD program. In 2005–2006, he produced, orchestrated and conducted for MacMillan/McGraw-Hill’s Spotlight on Music series. From 1990–1996, he conducted and arranged for The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular and Easter Extravaganza. He was musical director and vocal arranger for the Broadway productions of Buttons on Broadway and Dream. Bryan Louiselle has arranged, conducted and produced music for radio and television commercial music of the Broadway shows: Aida, The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, The Music Man, Swing!, Tallulah, A Christmas Carol, Into the Woods, 42nd Street, Cinderella, Take Me Out, Happily Ever After, and Titanic. Since 2002, he has been the resident music supervisor and adaptor, arranger, orchestrator, conductor, and recordings producer for MTI/Disney Kids & Jr., and MTI TYA projects, including: Cinderella KIDS, 101 Dalmatians KIDS, The Jungle Book KIDS, Aladdin JR. & TYA, Sleeping Beauty KIDS, The Aristocats KIDS, Alice in Wonderland JR., Mulan JR., Frog and Toad KIDS & JR, Seussical JR. & TYA and Thoroughly Modern Millie, JR. He wrote additional lyrics for The Aristocats, Alice in Wonderland, and Mulan, and adapted the book for Frog and Toad KIDS. A New Yorker since 1984, Bryan Louiselle once earned a degree in Piano Performance under the thumb, pinky and forefinger of Constance Keene at Manhattan School of Music.