Joe Iconis
Joe Iconis writes musical theater masterpieces that have the ability to tear your soul into pieces, make you grip your sides in laughter...or maybe even both! He is the father of many a musical (our favorite being Be More Chill), including an upcoming piece about Hunter S. Thompson. He also wrote songs for Smash and has an immeasurable amount of charm as a cabaret host. The Joe Iconis' Christmas Spectacular has become an institution at 54 Below. His fingertips ooze genius and we will be front and center at the first preview of his first Broadway musical one day soon! - BM
Photo: Instagram/@HagerMolly
Tanya Saracho
This Latina playwright is making serious waves with this year's searing Fade Off-Broadway about her real-life experience as a network television writer on such shows as How To Get Away With Murder and Looking. She is a total cutie and we need to be sure she keeps that pen handy...the girl can WRITE! - SM
Photo: Twitter/TanyaSaracho
Max Vernon
If you read our writeup about The View UpStairs, you’ll understand why we are OBSESSED with Max Vernon. There are only so many young composers who write such incredibly moving and powerful music--spoiler alert, Max is one of them. He won the Jonathan Larson grant and channels the essence of Rent in his songwriting. Oh, and did you know that he made it through tech week with kidney stones? I mean, come on. He’s the coolest! - GR
Photo: Frederic Lagrange Photography
Jahn Sood
Jahn Sood is the mastermind behind The Disappearing Man, a folk-opera that takes place in 1939...backstage at a traveling circus. The show sold out a short run at Cloud City back in 2014, and is currently on its way for the Ignite! Festival at the Rep in St. Louis in April 2017. If you’re in the area, get tickets--the show is fantastic and the score is mind blowing. Don’t live near STL? No problem! There’s a cast album, so you can dive into the absolute genius that is Jahn Sood and his breathtaking music until he's a Broadway shining star with lots of Tony Awards. - BM
Photo: Facebook/MK Morrissey
Sarah DeLappe
People are talking about Sarah DeLappe’s breakout play The Wolves. More specifically, people are talking about the way people are talking in The Wolves. Most of the dialogue is teenage girls on a soccer team overlapping one another, and speaking in the specific patois of female adolescence. The show has attracted the attention of mega producer Scott Rudin (The Front Page) among others. Sarah was the first person to win the 2015 Relentless Award which has the biggest cash prize of any playwrighting award in the US today. Will there be another run - possibly on Broadway - for The Wolves? The Circle in the Square Theater would be perfect for it, just sayin'...For now, Sarah is focusing on finishing grad school. - AS
Photo: IIAlaska.org
Rob Rokicki
Get familiar with this name quickly: he’s the guy behind the upcoming show The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. We had the pleasure of seeing some of his work performed at a press event in January, and we are SO STOKED for this show. The music is fun, emotional, and just all-around fantastic. Although he has a ridiculously long list of credits both as a performer and as a musical director, we can't wait for him to keep creating even more theater! - BM
Photo: RobertRokicki.com
Paola Lázaro
We were so in love with Tell Hector I Miss Him, and by proxy, the playwright who made it all possible! Paola is the current writer-in-residence at Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company and has been nominated for a lot of awards and scholarships. This mentee of playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis isn't afraid to make her dialogue raw and real, just like his. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Paola’s plays are beautiful tributes to her Latina heritage--as is the tattoo on her left wrist (an outline of Puerto Rico) that she got in exchange for a pack of cigarettes. We can't wait to see a lot more work by this extremely cool playwright. - BM
Photo: Arts.Columbia.Edu
Sara Bareilles
Sara Bareilles is no stranger to writing music -- she is, after all, a Grammy award-winning artist in her own right. She also performed the In Memoriam segment at this year's Oscars, nbd. However, Broadway welcomed her last year with her hit musical Waitress, which was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score. Get ready for more! It was recently announced that this songwriting genius would also be taking over the lead role in the show for a 10-week run in March. Cannot. Wait. - BM
Joshua Harmon
Joshua Harmon is a fresh face to Broadway, and we are LOVIN’ IT! After his very successful Off-Broadway play Bad Jews, his Broadway debut with Significant Other is already a huge success even though it just started, and we predict a fafillion Tony Awards coming its way for all the play categories. His dialogue is so real you feel like you're watching your friends and family speak to each other up there on that stage. This dude has a long and bright future ahead of him and we are PUMPED to see more! - BM
Photo: YouTube/Significant Other
Pasek & Paul
We can’t have a 40 Under 40 without including THE Pasek & Paul. This adorable young songwriting dream team wrote, no big deal, Dear Evan Hansen (which we haven’t been able to stop listening to, and predict ALL THE TONY AWARDS for them), and just won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “City of Stars” from the movie La La Land. Are they on the fast track to becoming the youngest to win the coveted EGOT? We can’t wait to find out! - GR
Photo: Instagram/PasekandPaul