Michael Friedman (composer)

Michael Friedman is an American composer and lyricist. He is a founding Associate Artist of The Civilians. He received a 2007 Obie award for sustained excellence. His musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opened on Broadway in October 2010.

Friedman grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Germantown Friends School, after which he studied history and literature at Harvard. While at Harvard, he studied under Bernard Rands, Mario Davidovsky, and Elizabeth Swados.

Friedman wrote music and lyrics for Saved, In the Bubble, The Brand New Kid, God’s Ear, and The Blue Demon. His music has also been heard at the New York Shakespeare Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout Theatre Company, Second Stage, Soho Repertory Theater, Signature Theatre, Theater for a New Audience, and The Acting Company. Regionally, his work has been featured at Hartford Stage, The Humana Festival of New American Plays, ART, Berkeley Rep, Dallas Theatre Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Portland Center Stage, and internationally at London’s Soho and Gate Theatres and the Edinburgh Festival.

He was the dramaturg for the 2004 Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Kenny Leon.

He is currently working with Itamar Moses on The Fortress of Solitude, an adaption based on the Jonathan Lethem book of the same name. It is scheduled to open September 30, 2014 at The Public Theater.

He is also writing a commissioned work on American history for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a musical about the adult film industry with Bess Wohl and The Civilians titled "Pretty Filthy".

With The Civilians, Friedman has been the composer and lyricist for Canard, Canard, Goose?, Gone Missing, [I Am] Nobody's Lunch, This Beautiful City, The Great Immensity, and In the Footprint, and co-author of Paris Commune. Upcoming: Pretty Filthy