1:1 Chat with Carmel Dean

The 1:1 Chats are a monthly online interview series delving into craft and process with industry professionals across the spectrum of disciplines. This month’s conversation will be led by composer, lyricist & MTW Associate Artist, LUKE DI SOMMA.

CARMEL DEAN is an Australian-born, New-York based composer/lyricist, musical director, and arranger. Her compositional debut, Renascence, (with a book by Tony Award-nominee Dick Scanlan) was produced Off-Broadway by the acclaimed theatre company Transport Group, and subsequently won the 2018 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Musical. Her song cycle Well-Behaved Women, about bad-ass, game-changing historical women, premiered at Joe’s Pub in January 2020 to sold-out performances and recently received rave reviews for its production in Sydney, Australia. She has been commissioned to write a new musical with Mindi Dickstein (Little Women) for New Works Provincetown/Mark Cortale.

As a Broadway Musical Director, Supervisor and/or Arranger, Carmel’s credits include If/Then (starring Idina Menzel), American Idiot, Hands on a Hardbody, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. She is the Musical Supervisor/Arranger/Co-Orchestrator of the upcoming Broadway musical The Notebook (with a score by Ingrid Michaelson). Other credits include Music Direction for Fun Home at Sydney Theatre Company and Arranger/Orchestrator for the upcoming Mystic Pizza at Ogunquit Playhouse.

Other roles include Vocal Arranger for jam-band Phish and Trey Anastasio (Madison Square Garden; Las Vegas; Chicago’s Wrigley Field); performer with Green Day on the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards; and former musical director for Broadway legend Chita Rivera.

Carmel is a Fulbright Scholar, holds an MFA from New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, and is a current member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Workshop.

Tickets are by donation.