Ray Leslee

Playwright

AVENUE X, the original a cappella musical, began Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons and went on to over 50 award-winning productions around the world, earning 13 of Philadelphia's Barrymore Awards, including Best Musical at the Wilma Theatre. STANDUP SHAKESPEARE was directed by Mike Nichols and produced Off-Broadway by the Shuberts, presented twice by the Folger Shakespeare Library, toured the US and Canada, and was at the Culture Project in 2005 starring Alfred Molina, F. Murray Abraham and Alice Ripley. A CHAMBER CHRISTMAS CAROL, an adaptation of Dickens for five actors and five musicians, premiered at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York in 2010, and featured Dominic Chianese (of The Sopranos) as Scrooge. A GOOD MAN, a new musical about a Mississippi tenant farmer, was produced in Europe by The Vienna Chamber Opera, and at the Eugene O’Neill in June 2011. In 2010 he composed music for PALESTINE, by Najla Said (daughter of Edward Said) at New York Theatre Workshop. Over 75 original scores for the Actor’s Studio, the Acting Company, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Kennedy Center, ACT Seattle, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Great Lakes Festival, and Theater for a New Audience, to name a few. He was the composer-in-residence of Buffalo's popular Shakespeare In Delaware Park for fifteen seasons, where he created some 35 original musicals and adaptations. He is considered "one of the leading composers of music for Shakespeare in the world" according to the Washington Post and The NY Times.

Appears in
Avenue X
Avenue X (New Theater Wing)