Lawrence Rush

Biography

Lawrence Rush wrote his first song and sang his first solo at the age of 10. After years of writing songs of unrequited love, he wrote music and lyrics for his first musical, Waiting at Patroni's. In 1990 he began writing the epic musical, Winter of the Fall, about the last days of Nicolai and Elena Ceaucescu, the corrupt, vicious and ridiculous dictators of Romania, and wrote the mini-musical, Next Door, based on the Kurt Vonnegut short story. Winter of the Fall received two New York readings, one at the John Houseman Theater, featuring Dominic Chianese and Gina Ferrall and one at the Romanian Cultural Center. In 1997, it was a Richard Rodgers Award finalist. In 2009, the show received a fully staged workshop production at Illinois Wesleyan University, directed by Scott Susong.

While studying film scoring at UCLA, Lawrence was arranger and contributing composer to the LA Weekly Theater Award nominated musical, Rules for Girls, which was produced at L.A.'s Odyssey Theatre. He wrote music and lyrics for the bi-lingual musical, A Maiden's Consent, for the National Theater of the Performing Arts, which toured schools throughout the country, and contributed a song to Everything About a Day...Almost for the youth theater company TADA! He composed arrangements for Liam Mulligan's CD, Lucky, for which he also wrote the title song. Also a composer of choral music, parts of his Friday Night Sabbath Service for chorus, cantor and soloists are performed regularly at several synagogues. Sim Shalom was a winner of the Shalshelet Award for Jewish Choral Music.

In 2003, The Way to Your Heart...the Words and Music of Lawrence Rush played to enthusiastic audiences at New York's cabaret club, Don't tell Mama. Besides Lawrence, the cast included Dan Sklar, Gayla Morgan and Shawn Marie Jeffery. That year, Lawrence was accepted into the BMI Musical Theater Workshop. He wrote The Long Walk to Forever, another mini-musical based on a Kurt Vonnegut short story, and began his musical adaptation of Pride & Prejudice for which he wrote the book, music and lyrics. Pride & Prejudice - the Musical was a 2008 Richard Rodgers Award finalist and has its first of several readings featuring Ron Bohmer and Jessica Rush and was musical directed by Matt Castle. Pride & Prejudice - the Musical then went on to readings with Main Street Musicals in Philadelphia and was one of 5 shows chosen to be workshopped by FWD Theatre Project in Chicago, where it was part of a concert featuring Karen Mason and Abby Mueller and had a well-received full public reading. A concert of the show was performed at 54 Below with Karen Mason, Nate Hackmann, Margot Seibert and Teal Wicks. Pride & Prejudice - the Musical is now being performed in high schools across the country and will have its European premiere this Fall just outside of London. Lawrence also co-wrote the music for the musical, Under the Influence, which was produced as part of Portland, Oregon's OUTwritght Festival and received a Drammy award for "Best Original Music". Also a composer of art songs, his Four Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sonnets for soprano and piano received several performances in the U.S. , Austria and Berlin, where it was broadcast on German radio. Altar was commissioned and performed by and at New York's Marble Collegiate Church for its 2009 World AIDS Day service.

At 16, Lawrence became the youngest member of the world-renowned show choir, The Young Americans. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree in voice from California State University, Northridge and two years after graduating, became the youngest full-time member of the San Francisco Opera Chorus at that time, covering and performing small roles with the company as well. In Los Angeles and Bay area theaters he performed many roles in opera and musical theater including Basilio (La Nozze di Figaro), Strephon (Iolanthe), Frederic (The Pirates of Penzance), both Pirelli and Tobias (Sweeney Todd), Julio (Paint Your Wagon), Gherardo (Gianni Schicchi), Goro (Madama Butterfly), Lenski (Eugene Onegin), Mendel (Fiddler on the Roof), Harry (Company) and George (Sunday in the Park with George).

Current projects include a musical about the life of Horace Wells, who discovered anesthesia, operas of La Mere Coupable with librettist A. Scott Parry..scenes were performed by Ohio State University's opera program... and Hedda Gabler. He is a musical director/teaching artist for TADA!, The Neighborhood Playhouse and Brooklyn Children's Theatre and has conducted the Teamsters Union Retiree Chorus, the Singers Forum chorus and Victoriano, a vocal jazz ensemble at Manhattan College. He continues to act, having performed Peron (Evita) and Luther Billis (South Pacific) in the New York area and Bob Cratchit in a National tour of Scrooge, and he continues to sing professionally with many choral groups, including the Gregg Smith Singers. Also a stage director, he directed the operas Salome and Ariadne auf Naxos for One World Symphony. In 2014 he started his own business, Cooking A Cappella, where he teaches cooking classes with fun sing-a-longs. Lawrence is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.