Steven Sater
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Duncan Sheik
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Steven Sater is a renowned poet, writer, and lyricist. Sater was born in Evansville, Indiana. He was sickly as a child and was reading Emily Dickenson and Walt Whitman by age eleven (Wadler). Sater struggled with a sense of belonging throughout his school years until he got involved with a high school play (Wadler). After graduating from high school he attended Washington University in St. Louis (Wadler). It wasn’t until his sophomore year of college did he realize what he wanted to do in his career. One night after waking up in the middle of the night because of a fire in his apartment building, Sater jumped from his third story balcony. During this near death experience Sater had a sudden realization, “I felt I wanted to create things that could last. Really what I felt was I wanted to create works of literature that could become part of the world” (Wadler). Being in the hospital with various injuries for four months provided Sater an excess amount of time to further investigate his goal of creating influential and lasting art.
Sater followed his undergraduate studies by attending Princeton University to study English literature (Wadler). Then Sater moved to New York and began working for a New York literary agency while continuing to write plays (“Steven Sater Bio”). At this time Sater joined a Buddhist organization where he met his wife and Duncan Sheik (“Steven Sater Bio”). Sater has worked on the musical adaptation of the Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound and was workshopped in December 2008 (“Steven Sater Bio”). Recently Sater has developed projects for HBO and Showtime. Sater has served as the co-created and executive producer for various pilots for NBC and Sony/FX (“Steven Sater Bio”). |
Duncan Sheik is a singer, songwriter, and composer. Sheik grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, and around his musical grandparents in Hilton Head, South Carolina (Bellafante). At age five he began playing the piano and soon picked up the guitar (“Duncan Sheik Biography”). Throughout his teenage years and early twenties he played with various bands (“Duncan Sheik Biography”). Sheik graduated from Brown University in 1992 with a degree in Semiotics, the study of signs and symbols (“Duncan Sheik Biography”). Sheik was not interested in musical theatre while attending school and stated, “It is inherently problematic as a genre” (Bellefante).
After years of struggling for his career to take off, Atlantic Records signed him in 1994. Two years later he released his debut album with positive reviews. His famous single from the album, “Barely Breathing” went on to be, “the fourth longest running top 100 single in Billboard history after being listed for 55 weeks” (“Duncan Sheik Biography”). In 1999, Sheik and Sater met and began collaborating on different projects together (Bellafante). In 1998 he released his second album Humming followed by Phantom Moon in 2001, Daylight in 2002, White Limousine in 2006, Whisper House in 2009, and Covers 80s in 2011 (Bush). Recently, Duncan worked on the musical adaptation of American Psycho (Bush). Sheik also composed the original music of Because of Winn-Dixie the musical, which premiered at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre in December 2013 (Purcell). |
“And if you thought the lushly angsty show ends on an uplifting note, with not all its nineteenth-century German teens dying of suicide or botched abortion, think again: ‘The kids who survived grow up to be the parents of the Nazis,’ noted Sater. Springtime Awakening for Hitler?”
Collaboration Between Sater and Sheik
In 1999, Sater approached Sheik about working together on adapting Wedekind’s play into a musical (Bellefante). In between their work together on Spring Awakening, Sheik paired up with Sater to work on his third album Humming, released in 2001 (Bush) In the beginning stages of Spring Awakening they collectively agreed, “The actors would not converse in song, only express their interior yearnings through it” (Bellefante). However, it would take seven years, multiple workshops, and countless script changes before their musical reached Broadway.
In 2007, Spring Awakening was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won 8. Sater won for Book of a Musical and Sheik won for Orchestrations. Sater and Sheik also took home the Tony Award for Original Score and Best Musical (“Spring Awakening”). Spring Awakening went on to receive many other awards including the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album (Bush).
Sater and Sheik went on to collaborate in the following projects:
- The Nightingale, a musical adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story, workshopped in April 2008.
- Nero: Another Golden Rome, a musical workshopped in July 2008.
- Wrote songs for the films A Home at the End of the World, Brother’s Shadow, and The Cake Eaters. (Steven Sater Bio)
- Alice by Heart, a new musical version of Alice in Wonderland, in 2012 (Bush).
Sources:
Bellafante, Ginia. "Broadway Is Rocker's Latest Alternative." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Dec. 2006. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.
Bush, John. "Artist Biography." AllMusic. All Media Network, LLC, n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.
"Duncan Sheik Biography." The Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com, Inc., n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.
Murphy, Tim. "Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater Talk About What's Next." Vulture. New York Media, LLC, 21 Feb. 2008. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
Purcell, Carey. "Because of Winn Dixie, New Musical by Duncan Sheik and Nell Benjamin." Playbill.com. Playbill, Inc., 18 July 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
"Spring Awakening." Playbill Vault. Playbill, Inc. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
"Steven Sater Bio." In.com. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.
Wadler, Joyce. "Storming Broadway From Atop a Fortress." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Dec. 2006. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.