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Bio

For more than a decade, R.C. Staab has concentrated his writing in the theater as a playwright, bookwriter, librettist and lyricist. 

 

HOW THE WESTONS WON, "Indian in the Cupboard" with a bit of "Next to Normal", with music by Aaron Latina, is off-Broadway Dec. 14-23 at Jefferson Market Library directed by Joe Barros and is featured at New York Theatre Barn's new works series, Dec. 2 and is part of St. Louis' First Run Theatre Reading Series Jan. 27, 2019.  It was staged at New Works Series of the NYFA Music Theatre program in February 2018, directed by Barros, who also helmed a workshop presentation in March 2017 at the cell theatre.  The show features a song (co-written with Dave Ogrin) that was a finalist for Broadway Producer Ken Davenport's Songwriting Contest and the Stiles-Drewe Songwriting Contest in England.  Demos with with Broadway singers including Liz Callaway are featured on the show's website.

 

With Seth Bisen-Hersh, he has written an innovative musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's, THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ which had its second staged reading in June at the Dramatist Guild Music Hall featuring new songs following our November 2017 reading.  The cast album is available on iTunes, Amazon and other music sites.

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DUMB LUCK, a new musical with composer Michael Sansonia, is the winner of the TRU Voices Musical Series with a staged reading set for January 2017 at St. Luke's Theatre.  The show was part of the New Work Series of Emerging Artists in March 2016.  ZOMBIE WEDDING, written with Daniel Sturman, is heading for a New York production in 2017 under the guidance of producer Robert Lazo after several workshops in 2015 and 2016.  HOW THE WESTONS WON recently finished work in the recording studio in anticipation in a workshop in Spring 2017.

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ONE WAY TICKET: A Musical Murder Mystery, written with Daniel Sturman, was part of Fisher Taylor-Gaunt's Under Construction project in London in 2015.  

 

In 2014, a song he co-wrote with Dave Ogrin was a finalist for Broadway Producer Ken Davenport's Song Writing Contest and the Stiles-Drewe Songwriting Contest in England.  He co-wrote SIGNAL MALFUNCTION, a contemporary farce, which was featured at the 2013 at the Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York. He is also hard at work on the new musical, HOW THE WESTONS WON.

 

The original version of ZOMBIE WEDDING sold out at the Gorleston Pavilion in October 2012 and was one of the Top Picks of the 2011 New York International Fringe Festival with glowing reviews and more than a dozen call-outs from the NY Daily News, Village Voice, Theatremania.com, Playbill.com, MSN.com and WCBS Radio. 

 

In 2009, two of his musicals received fully-staged, Equity-approved workshop productions in collaboration with leading musical theater companies in the Bay Area. Directed by Bay Area veteran musical theater director Dianna Shuster, SHADOWS OF POMPEII was produced in collaboration with 42nd Street Moon Theatre at the Eureka Theatre as a non-subscription part of Moon’s 2008-09 season. Earlier in 2009,

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH had a fully-staged Equity-approved workshop production in San Jose in collaboration with American Musical Theatre of San Jose and directed by Mike Ward, who has been involved in the development of new musical theater projects by George Furth and other Broadway composer.

 

As part of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, Staab’s musical, RM3, premiered.  It featured songs by noted pop composer Ben Folds. A year earlier, his full-length comedy, A UNION OF SAN FRANCISCANS, was produced at the Phoenix Theatre. Through ASCAP’s Collaborator Corner, Staab’s first effort at writing musicals, THE LULUS,  was done electronically in 2001-2002 with a lyricist in Detroit and a composer in New York. He has written several short theater pieces and is a regular contributor at a theater and screenwriting group in the Bay Area.

 

In addition to writing, Staab has been involved in theatre as an actor and has served on the Board of American Musical Theatre of San Jose and marketing committees for Playmakers Repertory Theatre in North Carolina and American Musical Theatre Festival in Philadelphia.

 

He is a Professional Writing Associate of Mercury Musical Developments, Theatre Development Fund and Theatre Resources Unlimited and a former member of Theatre Bay Area.

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