Sheilah Rae

Works by Sheilah Rae:

THE BELLE OF TOMBSTONE
I LOVE FERBER

Synopses:

The Belle of Tombstone – The all-female musical The Belle of Tombstone excavates the untold true story of the Jewish wife of Wyatt Earp and the women of the American West.

I Love Ferber – I Love Ferber consists of two one act musicals Every Other Thursday and Our Very Best People based on two short stories by Edna Ferber. These world premiere musicals are the only musical versions of Edna Ferber short stories.

Bio:

Sheilah Rae has had an extensive career in the Theatre and the Music Business. She has been a performer in such Broadway musicals as Fiddler On the Roof , Applause, The Rothschilds, and Company. She served on the production team of Rupert Holmes’ Broadway thrillers, Accomplice and Solitary Confinement starring Stacy Keach. As a partner in her own music production company, she produced original music and/or lyrics for such clients as Time, People, Doritos, Beechnut Baby Food, Ben Gay, etc. As a songwriter she has written numerous pop songs for both New York and Nashville recording artists, been a recording artist on RCA, performed in nightclubs, sung back-up for such artists as Barry Manilow, and written a variety of theme songs for TV. 

She co-created Funny, You Don’t Look Like A Grandmother, with Lois Wyse and Robert Waldman, which she also produced in Los Angeles where it ran for a year and a half, and continues to play all over the country and is published by Samuel French/Concord.  She is lyricist and co-book writer of The Belle of Tombstone, with Thomas Edward West, and composer, Michele Brourman, a musical based loosely on the life of Josephine Sarah Marcus, the third wife of Wyatt Earp. This show had developmental workshop productions with The Tennessee Rep, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and ASCAP/Disney, the Falcon Theater in LA, and the Hartt School at the University of Hartford (twice!) It was performed in London in the Musical Futures Series at the Greenwich Theater with an all West End cast, and had a world premiere in Fall 2005 at Bristol Riverside Theatre. It had such a successful readings and productions at California State Univ. at Fullerton. The New York Theatre Barn produced it in NYC, with an all-star Broadway cast including Tovah Feldshuh, directed by Graciela Daniele. In 2008, a concert version was performed in Los Angeles at the Festival of New American Musicals starring Carol Lawrence and Carole Cook. It played off-Broadway at 59E59 in May 2011 to sold out audiences. She is a five-time finalist for the Heideman Award of the Humana Festival, in 2005 for her short musical play ‘Lovelines’ and 2006 for What Goes Around, and 2010 for The Waiter, all with Brourman, as well as Single and Active in 2011, On the Page in 2012.  The first three were performed in the LPTW’s Short Plays Festival ‘05 and ’06 and ‘09 in New York. The Waiter was also recently performed at The Cherry Lane and in the 8 Minute Madness Festival off-Broadway. Their short musical On the Page was part of Snapshots at The Prospect Theater Co. in Feb. 2010. All these shorts were performed at Chicago’s Light Opera Works and Midwest New Musicals New Works Series in November 2011 under the title And the Tables Turn, and was a finalist for the O’Neill Musical Theater Conference, 2011. Now entitled What Goes Around it was invited into the Reading Series for 2013-2014 at The York Theatre. Her mini-musical The Mystery of Young Woman Drawing with Deborah Savadge was presented by Prospect Theater Company as part of Portraits, for which she wrote music and lyrics. Her songs were featured in the concert Women Making Musicals at the Times Center in May 2015. New York Theatre Barn also presented an evening of Sheilah’s songs All These Years: The Songs of Sheilah Rae in April 2015. 

She has won songwriting awards from Billboard, Music City Song Festival, Variety, and in 1999 was awarded the Rising Star Galaxy Award from the NY Women’s Agenda for outstanding work in the theater. She is a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from NY Theatre Barn, and The Special Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, for outstanding contributions to the work of women in theatre.

She has served on the Council for Songwriters Guild of America, and is a past-President of the League of Professional Theatre Women, now serving on their Advisory Board.. She is the current Founding Board President Emeritas of New York Theatre Barn, off-off Broadway company specializing in new musicals. She was a founding member of the Grammys in the Schools Program, a national education program about the Music Industry, and has been a guest lecturer about Music in Advertising at several colleges. Sheilah is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and also trained in London at the Royal Academy of Music, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  She is a member of AEA, SAG, AFTRA, Local 802, The Dramatist Guild, and is a Grammy Voting Member of NARAS, and is a graduate of CTI of the LATP, and a member of the New Producers Alliance of the Producers Development Program. 

Website: www.sheilahrae.net

* Please note that some titles are handled by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Dramatic Publishing, Broadway Play Publishing, and Playscripts.com.  Please ask if you don’t see a particular play.