Steven Sater

Steven Sater,

is an American poet, playwright, lyricist, television writer, and screenwriter.

Born in Evansville, Indiana, Sater attended Washington University in St. Louis as an undergraduate. Due to an apartment fire Sater was forced to jump from his balcony during a building fire and damaged his spine, as well as several other limbs. The months spent recovering from his injuries and burns inspired Sater to seriously pursue the arts, and he went on to study English literature at Princeton University.

After completing his graduate program, Sater took a position with a New York literary agent, but continued to write plays on the side. It was during this time that he joined the Soka Gakkai, a lay Buddhist organization. His membership has proved important to his life beyond spirituality, as it brought Sater together with both his future wife, and his future creative partner, Duncan Sheik.

Soon after meeting, Sater collaborated with Sheik on his play Umbrage, with Sheik providing the music for Sater's lyrics. To produce Sheik's third studio album Phantom Moon, Sater gave Sheik lyrics and Sheik set them musically, cooperatively producing the album. They returned to stage to produce Nero (Another Golden Rome) at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, California. The project remains in active development, most recently workshopped with New York Stage and Film at the Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College in July 2008, starring Idina Menzel, Lea Michele, and Michael Arden, under the direction of Daniel Kramer.

Sater and Sheik continued their stage work with Spring Awakening, a musical interpretation of German playwright Frank Wedekind's play of the same name. In 2007, Sater won two Tony Awards for his work on Spring Awakening. He won the Tony for Best Book and Best Musical Score, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, and the Outer Critic Circle Award for Best Lyrics. The pair received the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album and, in addition, The Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the Outer Critics Circle, the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics' Circle, and Drama League Awards for Best Musical. Spring Awakening currently is on a national tour in the US and has opened internationally in Australia, Sweden, Helsinki, Budapest, and London at the Lyric Hammersmith theater.Productions are already scheduled for eighteen countries around the world throughout Europe, Asia, and South America.

Sater and Sheik have been at work for some years on The Nightingale, a musical adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story. The work was commissioned by Martin McCallum and was most recently workshopped by the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco in April 2008, under the direction of James Lapine.

Sater is also hard at work with System of a Down's Serj Tankian on a musical version of Prometheus Bound, to be directed by Diane Paulus. It was workshopped in December 2008 at the Classic Stage Company in NY, and will premiere at the American Repertory Theater sometime in 2010.

Sater wrote two songs with Sheik for Michael Mayer's feature film A Home at the End of the World as well as the independent features Brother's Shadow and Mary Stuart Masterson's The Cake Eaters.

Sater is also co-creator and executive producer, with Paul Reiser, of recent pilots for both NBC and FX, and has developed two projects for HBO, and another for Showtime.He is also at work on a feature film with Jessie Nelson.

In addition, Sater works as a lyricist with various composers in the pop/rock world, including Burt Bacharach, Johnny Mandel, Andreas Carlsson, and William Joseph. One of Sater and Bacharach’s songs will be performed at the 2009 San Remo Festival by the Italian recording artist Karima.

Sources

New York Times - "Storming Broadway From Atop a Fortress"

Variety - "Reiser and Sater set for TV laffer"

Playbill - The Nightingale workshop

Playbill - Nero workshop

Sater and Jessie Nelson collaborate

Playbill - Prometheus Bound workshop

The Telegraph - Spring Awakening London opening

The Independent - "Spring Awakening opens at the Lyric"

Variety - "Spring Awakening opens overseas"

(source:wikipedia)