Gypsy

Jule Styne is one of the formative composers of American musical theater today. Along with the scores of such Broadway classics as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peter Pan, Bells Are Ringing, Gypsy, and Funny Girl, Styne has 1,500 published songs. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Chicago, where Styne began studying at the Chicago College of Music. His first published song was commissioned from him when he was sixteen years old for a musical act by Mike Todd. His collaborators have included Stephen Sondheim, Sammy Cahn, Leo Robin, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and Bob Merrill. As a result of these collaborations, from 1949 through 1974, nearly every new Broadway season saw the opening of a show with a Jule Styne score. Styne was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972, the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981, and became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1990. In 1992, he received the New Dramatists Lifetime Achievement Award.

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