Maryrose Wood is a librettist, lyricist, playwright, screenwriter and novelist, and is proud to be the first recipient of the Georgia Bogardus Holof Lyricist Award. Her first young adult novel, SEX KITTENS AND HORN DAWGS FALL IN LOVE, will be published by Delacorte Press/Random House in January 2006. She's currently writing NVR B ENUF, also for Random House. Another book project for teens, titled WHY I LET MY HAIR GROW OUT, was just purchased by Berkley Books/Penguin Group as the first of a two-book deal.
Ms. Wood wrote the book and lyrics for THE TUTOR, an original musical comedy with music by Andrew Gerle. THE TUTOR is the only three-time recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' prestigious Richard Rodgers Award for new musicals. The show has been developed at the O'Neill Music Theatre Conference, the York Theatre, The Village Theatre (Issaquah, WA, where it won the "Best of Fest" award), and recently had a critically-acclaimed run at 59E59 Theatres as part of Prospect Theatre's season of new musicals. Excerpts have been included in The Public Theater's New Works Now! Festival, Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, and in concert at Merkin Hall.
Ms. Wood and Mr. Gerle completed their first movie musical in 2004. Titled LOVE, MOM and directed by Ted Sperling, the short film stars Tony Award-winner Tonya Pinkins as the mother of a US serviceman overseas. LOVE, MOM was premiered at Anthology Film Archive and has been screened at numerous film festivals worldwide, including the Black Maria Film Festival, where it won the Director's Choice Award. Most recently it was selected for the inaugural Golden Lion Film Festival in Swaziland.
Also with Mr. Gerle, she wrote a full-length musical called THE GIFT. A Rodgers Award finalist, THE GIFT is set in turn-of-the-century New York at Christmas, and is based on the short stories of O. Henry.
Ms. Wood's plays include THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, THE LOVE PONZI, and FRAN'S LIPOSUCTION, and have been read at Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Women's Project, The Playwright's Center of San Francisco and other venues. Her short musicals and songs have been presented at Joe's Pub, the National Arts Club, Broadway Theatre Institute, Dixon Place, and various cabarets in New York, as well as in university and high school productions.
She has completed two original screenplays, both of which have been optioned and one of which finished in the top 30 for the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship. She wrote and directed HERE TO STAY: THE MUSIC OF GEORGE GERSHWIN, a Gershwin centennial celebration presented by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Wood lives in New York with her two children. She is a graduate of NYU's Gallatin School, and is a member of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop and the Dramatists Guild.