Aron Accurso

The Dogs of Pripyat

Lyrics by Jill Abramovitz
Music by Aron Accurso
Book by Leah Napolin and Jill Abramovitz
Based on the Play by Leah Napolin

About: After the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl, all humans were forced to evacuate and leave behind their beloved pets. This is the story of those pets, and one in particular: Boychik, a loyal lap dog who is forced to adapt to this harsh new world without his family. It’s a story of hope and survival when both seem least possible.

Development: The Dogs of Pripyat won the Jerry Bock award, given by the legendary Sheldon Harnick, and the Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, garnering a concert at Weston and a demo produced by Kurt Deutch and Sh-K-Boom. The show was featured in the NAMT Festival of New Musicals, the Goodspeed Festival of New Artists, and the Bound for Broadway series at Merkin concert hall. It received an industry reading at City Center, a master class with Stephen Schwartz, and a workshop at The University of Miami. Songs from the show have been performed in the Lincoln Center Songbook series, Musical Mondays, Manhattan Theatre Club with BMI as well as various BMI smokers, virtual concerts at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center and NY Theatre Barn, and a sold-out concert at GreenRoom 42 in March, 2020. The Dogs of Pripyat was originally developed in the BMI Workshop (where Aron and Jill received Harrington awards), and the Dramatists Guild Fellows program under the generous mentorship of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.

Visit the show website at TheDogsofPripyat.com

Sheet Music: View on NewMusicalTheatre.com

You Are Enough: A Mental Health Suite

YOU ARE ENOUGH: A MENTAL HEALTH SUITE (TTBB) & (SATB)
Music by Aron Accurso, Text by Aron Accurso and Rachel Griffin
Commissioned by The University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club.

About the piece: Commissioned by the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club, “You Are Enough: A Mental Health Suite” was written to advocate for, and elevate conversations about, mental health awareness.  It is available from Hal Leonard and the SATB version will be available soon after a premiere in 2021.

I.) “Inside the Storm.”  Text: Aron Accurso. The first movement is a song of support; you don’t have to pretend things are OK, or do anything, you can just be with someone literally, or from afar, “inside the storm”. 

II.) “A Thought Storm.”  Text: Aron Accurso and Choir members.  The second movement draws inspiration from a wonderful community art installation and social media movement: The Chalkboard Project.  They take pictures of people with chalkboards displaying words that have hurt them in the past and replace them with positive words.   It’s a tempest of positive affirmations and negative thoughts battling back and forth incorporating specific words from the Glee Club members.

III.) “You Are Enough”.  Text by Rachel Griffin.  There is a beautiful quote by Sierra Boggess and Susan Batson, “You are enough, you are so enough, it’s unbelievable how enough you are!” that was the inspiration for this movement. 

We Have Apples

Lyrics by Rachel Griffin
Music and Book by Rachel Griffin and Aron Accurso

Development includes: Workshop with Theatre Now NY, WeBroadway concert at Daryl Roth Theatre, Dramatists Guild Showcase at Playwrights Horizons, 54 Below Concert, NY Theatre Barn, Mental Health America National Conference performance (select songs), Theatre Now New York’s Sound Bites Festival, Musical Theatre Factory- 4X15 series, New Light Theatre Project’s Dark Room Series.

Sheet Music: View on NewMusicalTheatre.com

Seeing Red

Book and Lyrics by Joey Mazzarino
Music by Aron Accurso

About: Seeing Red is a brand new adult musical comedy that takes tropes of children’s theater (puppets, magic, fairy tale characters) and spins them on their head! Red Riding Hood, now a grown woman, spends her days joylessly making deliveries to princesses who seem to be living their perfect happily ever-afters. Her delivery truck and her life take a big left turn when she meets the Man From Nantucket who convinces her to smuggle the downtrodden Limerick characters over Humpty Dumpty’s wall into the fairy tale utopia, Everafteropolis. The Big Bad Wolf will do everything he can to stop them, including murder.

Development: Seeing Red won the 2019 TRU (Theatre Resources Unlimited) Voice reading series award which resulted in a public reading of the show presented by Laura Kriete-Bain.  In addition to a table read, they did an industry reading staring Kerry Butler and Charl Brown

Joseph Mazzarino is an American actor, puppeteer, writer and director. He is best known for his roles on Sesame Street as Murray Monster, Stinky the Stinkweed and other Muppets and being Head Writer and Director on Sesame Street, winning 22 Emmy Awards for his work. Mazzarino is currently writing on a new PBS series from the Fred Rogers Company entitled Donkey Hodie and is about to begin his third season as a writer for the PBS animated series Nature Cat.

The Trail

The Trail
Music and Lyrics by Aron Accurso and Adam Overett
For the Colorado Children’s Chorale

About the piece: Commissioned by the Colorado Children’s Chorale, The Trail, is a six movement choral piece for treble voices with instrumental accompaniment (Harp, Flute, Violin, Cello, Bass, Percussion, and Piano). It premiered April 12th, 2014 at Boettcher Concert Hall. Each movement features a different age group culminating in a finale with all voices.

Program notes
Our first steps forward on this piece were steps back in time. We went journeying through our own memories of the Chorale, bringing out archaic relics like Polaroid snapshots (this is how we remembered things before smartphone cameras) and things we once called “cassette tapes” (anyone?). So many memories came rushing back of the experiences we shared, and of the musical repertoire that shaped us so deeply. We wanted to create something that expressed all the different facets of experience that the Chorale brought to our lives, both personally and musically.

As we kept exploring, certain themes and ideas kept surfacing: being a child with an exciting future before you; facing challenges; learning and growing; building foundations that would last a lifetime; being part of a community, and growing into someone who can pass on the lessons you’ve learned; giving thanks to parents, teachers, all those who helped guide you.

And along with the themes, images of Colorado kept coming forward too. We contemplated the natural beauty of our home state, watched over by our beloved Rocky Mountains, which stand to the west as a kind of welcoming challenge to all of us – beckoning all travelers and explorers to find their own way among the paths countless others have traveled before them; offering a long and arduous journey to the top, but with a beautiful view all along the way. And so our piece became a set of pieces, in which the different choirs of the Chorale appear at different vantage points along a trail. Within each song, as one choir is joined by the next, we watch the progression of our journeys and our selves unfold.

We wish the best to every young singer on the stage, all of whom have their own exciting, daunting, wondrous and joyous journeys ahead of them. We’ll see you along the way.

Happy 40th birthday, Colorado Children’s Chorale!

Your fellow explorers,
Adam and Aron

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More Musical Theatre & Choral Songs

Jill and Aron wrote this song for the “Broadway’s Future” Concert at Lincoln Center.  Michael Winther plays a character having an affair and decides to break up with his mistress.

Aron began writing “Evermore” on his honeymoon and later it was performed beautifully by the Tennessee All-State Choir, conducted by Gene Peterson.

Adam Overett and Aron were asked to write a song for MuseMatch, a Musical Theater Blind Date Collaboration, where composers are paired with singers they don’t know (in this case, Jeremy Morse) and are asked to share their deepest, personal joys and fears; and make a song together.

Songs for Littles (YouTube Channel)

About: Songs for Littles is a popular YouTube channel for toddlers and preschoolers with educational videos and music classes produced, written and performed by Rachel (Aron’s wife), Aron, and Jules Hoffman. In addition to writing songs, Aron performs the puppets Herbie, Georgie, and others. The channel has over 100K subscribers and over 30 million views.  

Here’s a song Aron wrote and performed called “Caterpillar.”

Buzzfeed featured Songs for Littles in an article: “My Daughter Was Having Trouble Learning to Speak Until I Discovered this YouTuber: I’m pretty sure this is the best show for toddlers ever.”

Here’s a video feature on NY1 about the channel

Here’s a sample episode, “D for Dinosaur”

Strega Nona

Original Lyrics by ROBERTA CARLSON and THOMAS W. OLSON
Music and Additional Lyrics by ARON ACCURSO
Adapted for the Stage by THOMAS W. OLSON

An Italian sorceress, Strega Nona, decides to teach the local baker’s daughter magic. Strega Nona’s bumbling, knock-kneed helper, Big Anthony, also wants to learn magic, so he dresses up as a girl, and tries to use Strega Nona’s magic book, magic ring, and magic pasta pot with hilarious and disastrous results!

About the show: Tomie Depaola’s Strega Nona is the fusion of three of dePaola’s cherished books: Strega Nona (Caldecott Honor), Strega Nona’s Magic Lessons and Big Anthony and the Magic Ring. The renowned Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis originally developed the show for their 1986-87 Season with Thomas Olson and Roberta Carlson. Aron was commissioned to write music for the show by the Weston Playhouse in 2006. Since, the show has been performed at the Atlantic Theatre in NYC (“happy, hummable songs” The New York Times), the Adventure Theatre in MD, on a two year national tour by Maximum Entertainment, and by other children’s theatres around the country.

Contact: Diane Krausz & Associates, 33 W. 19th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001.
Phone: 212.244.5292 – Fax: 212.244.5750 – [email protected]