Photograph by Isaiah Tanenbaum
Joshua H. Cohen is a New York City-based playwright, composer and lyricist. He received a 2011 American Theatre Wing Jonathan Larson Grant for his work with composer/co-bookwriter Marisa Michelson. Their work together includes Tamar and the River, which was commissioned and workshopped by Signature Theatre, and featured in the Songwriters Showcase of the NAMT 22nd Annual Festival of New Musicals; and Still Life With Toe Shoes, which received a workshop production at Old Deerfield Productions, and a subsequent production by Musical Theatre Society of Emerson College.
Other honors include a 2010 MAC Award nomination (Special Musical Material) for his song "The Sacrifice of Love"; being named a finalist for the 2010 Jonathan Wallowich Award; and Chameleon Theatre Circle's 11th Annual New Play Contest (musicals category) for Maggie the Pirate, which had a workshop in March 2011 in Western Kentucky University's Before Broadway Series, and in New York City in August 2011 with Momentum Repertory Company. Amas Musical Theatre received a 2011 NEA grant for its upcoming coproduction of Keep On Walkin’, a family musical about the Montgomery bus boycott, with Queens Theatre in the Park.
As a composer/lyricist, his song cycle The Entropy Songs inaugurated the Abingdon Theatre Company’s cabaret space, and was revived by Libra Theater Company. Its component songs have been heard in cabarets and showcases across the country. Other collections of his songs have been heard in New York City at The Duplex with New York Theatre Barn (So These Three Girls Walk in a Bar: songs of women, for women, by Josh), The Laurie Beechman Theatre (Post No Bills: the songs of Joshua H. Cohen), and Space on White with Momentum Rep.
His play Fun and Games received an extensive workshop from Little Hibiscus Productions, and is looking for its first full staging. "Odysseus Swims For It," a ten-minute play, was published by Smith & Kraus in their 2010 The Best 10-Minute Plays. His one-act play "Sam I Am" was a semi-finalist in The 16th Annual 15 Minute Play Festival. Boys at Play, a book of poetic wit and whimsy, collects his lyrics and poetry alongside the work of N.D. Austin, Artie Moffa and Wing L. Mui, and is available from Bicycle Comics Productions.
He also wrote lyrics (and sometimes music and/or book) for The Mole (Emerging Artist Theatre's Spring 2011 EATFest/Notes From a Page); The Day the World Went Queer!, whose premiere in the New York International Fringe Festival received rave reviews; Far Away From America (performed at Dixon Place’s Warning: Not for Broadway! festival); The Mirror Song (Amherst College); and Dragons (Silver Wordsmith Productions).
Full-length plays have received readings from Studio 42, Oberon Theatre Ensemble, Judson Church/Magic Time and Jewish Ensemble Theatre. One-act plays and musicals have been presented by The Vineyard Playhouse, Turtle Shell Productions, Prospect Theater Company, Raw Impressions Music Theatre and 24 Hour Plays, among others. He composed the music for William D. Arnold and Trebien Pollard’s dance piece "Erosion: Things Fall Apart," and incidental music for Keats in Curlers at the Looking Glass Theater.
His collaborators include composers Lavell Blackwell and Marisa Michelson; and playwrights Jonathan Matthew Gilbert and James Armstrong; and singer/essayist/raconteur Brooke Ferris. He was a 2008-10 fellow in American Lyric Theater’s Composer-Librettist Development Program. He is managing director of Blue Room Arts Collective, and a member of the Dramatists Guild. He received his BA from Amherst College, and his MFA from New York University/Tisch School of the Arts’ Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.
Click here for a printable version of Joshua's résumé.