32 Facts About Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Lawrence Schwartz was born on March 6,1948 and is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist.

Stephen Schwartz has contributed lyrics to a number of successful films, including Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Prince of Egypt, Enchanted, and Disenchanted.

Stephen Schwartz has earned numerous accolades including three Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.

Stephen Schwartz has received nominations for six Tony Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award.

Stephen Schwartz received the Tony Award's Isabelle Stevenson Award in 2015.

Stephen Schwartz is Jewish, and was born in New York City, the son of Sheila Lorna, a teacher, and Stanley Leonard Stephen Schwartz, a businessman.

Stephen Schwartz grew up in the Williston Park area of Nassau County, New York, where he graduated from Mineola High School in 1964.

Stephen Schwartz graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama.

Stephen Schwartz was asked to be the musical director of the first American rock opera, The Survival of St Joan.

Stephen Schwartz was credited as the producer of the double album of the soundtrack with the progressive rock group Smoke Rise on Paramount Records.

Stephen Schwartz had begun writing songs for Pippin while in college, although none of the songs from the college version ended up in the Broadway production.

Two years after Pippin debuted, Stephen Schwartz wrote music and lyrics of The Magic Show, which ran for just under 2,000 performances.

In 1978, Stephen Schwartz's next Broadway project was a musical version of Studs Terkel's Working, which he adapted and directed, winning the Drama Desk Award as best director, and for which he contributed four songs.

Stephen Schwartz co-directed the television production, which was presented as part of the PBS American Playhouse series.

In 1977, Stephen Schwartz wrote a children's book called The Perfect Peach.

Stephen Schwartz then wrote music for three of the songs of the Off-Broadway revue Personals, and lyrics to Charles Strouse's music for the musical Rags.

In 1991, Stephen Schwartz wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Children of Eden.

Stephen Schwartz then began working in film, collaborating with composer Alan Menken on the scores for the Disney animated features Pocahontas, for which he received two Academy Awards, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Stephen Schwartz provided songs for DreamWorks' first musical animated feature, The Prince of Egypt, winning another Academy Award for the song "When You Believe".

Stephen Schwartz wrote music and lyrics for the original television musical, Geppetto, seen on The Wonderful World of Disney.

In 2003, Stephen Schwartz returned to Broadway, as composer and lyricist for Wicked, a musical based on the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which tells the story of the Oz characters from the point of view of the witches.

Stephen Schwartz won a Grammy Award for his work as composer and lyricist and producer of Wicked's cast recording.

Stephen Schwartz returned to Hollywood in 2007 and wrote lyrics for the hit Disney film Enchanted, again collaborating with Menken.

Stephen Schwartz has written the theme song for the Playhouse Disney show Johnny and the Sprites, starring John Tartaglia.

On several occasions prior to 2008, Stephen Schwartz had reached out to Tim Dang who was the longtime artistic director of Los Angeles-based Asian-Pacific Islander theater company, East West Players.

In 2008, Applause Theatre and Cinema Books published the first ever Stephen Schwartz biography titled Defying Gravity, by Carol de Giere.

Ondrasik became familiar with Stephen Schwartz based on his daughter's affection for, and repeated attendance at performances of, the musical Wicked.

The first will be a magic themed revue of Stephen Schwartz's music, titled Magic To Do, including one new song written for the show.

Stephen Schwartz returned to write the lyrics for a sequel to Enchanted, titled Disenchanted, and will do the same for a live-action remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

In 2009 Stephen Schwartz was elected president of the Dramatists Guild of America, succeeding John Weidman; he stepped down in 2014, to be succeeded by Doug Wright.

Stephen Schwartz has won many major awards in his field, including three Oscars, three Grammys, four Drama Desk Awards, one Golden Globe Award, the Richard Rodgers Award for Excellence in Musical Theater and a self-described "tiny handful of tennis trophies".

Stephen Schwartz received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University in May 2015.