Christopher Anselmo is an American composer and playwright of musical theatre.
Christopher Anselmo | |
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Born | Princeton, New Jersey | January 10, 1994
Genres | Musical theatre |
Years active | 2012-present |
Born in Princeton, NJ, Anselmo spent the majority of his childhood in Millstone Township, NJ. His first extended venture into songwriting happened at Allentown High School when he wrote a book report on David Copperfield as a song cycle. [1] Anselmo moved to East Greenwich, RI, after his sophomore year of high school; [2] he is a 2012 graduate of The Wheeler School. [3] He attended Northwestern University. [4]
Anselmo's first musical, Fable, was co-written with his childhood friend, H.S. Kaufman. Originally written by Anselmo in high school as a song cycle, he brought Kaufman on to write a script, which would help to transform the collection of songs into a full-length musical. [5] It premiered at New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) in July 2014. Anselmo and Kaufman were the youngest writers ever to be accepted to the festival in history. [6]
Anselmo wrote music and lyrics for The Haunted Train. The show was commissioned and produced by Unmasked Theatre Company at Theater for the New City in October 2015. [7]
After graduating from Northwestern in 2016, Anselmo went on to write music and lyrics for Atlantic: America & The Great War, the second musical in a two-show collaboration between American Musical Theater Project and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Atlantic premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017. [8]
Anselmo wrote the New York Times' Critic's Pick adaptation of the best-selling children's series, The Pout-Pout Fish, for TheaterWorksUSA. [9] It premiered at the New Victory Theater in October 2019 before embarking on a national tour, which was cut short due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.