Adam Guettel (; born December 16, 1964) is an American composer-lyricist of musical theater and opera. Guettel has written the Broadway musicals Floyd Collins (1994), The Light in the Piazza (2003), and Days of Wine and Roses (2023).
As a composer and lyricist, Guettel has earned acclaim and numerous accolades, including two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, The Stephen Sondheim Award, the Richard Rodgers Award, and the Frederick Loewe Award.
Early life, family, and education
Adam Guettel, who is of Jewish heritage, was born on December 16, 1964. Guettel is the son of composer, author and Juilliard School chairman Mary Rodgers, who died on June 26, 2014, and grandson of musical theater composer Richard Rodgers. His father, Henry Guettel (died October 7, 2013), was a film executive and was the executive director of the Theatre Development Fund. He was raised on the Upper West Side of New York City. Despite his mother starting her career writing musicals, Rodgers had moved on to novels by the time Guettel was born, making music uncommon in his childhood home.
Guettel has four siblings. Another brother, Matthew, died at age three of asthma—Guettel's LLC is called Matthew Music.
Guettel began performing as a boy soprano soloist in operas including Pelléas et Mélisande and The Magic Flute, both at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera, and in another production of Pelléas with the Santa Fe Opera. He was also slated to play Amahl in the film remake of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. After Guettel's voice changed, it "became a very light, high tenor", ending his boy soprano career.
Guettel played bass guitar in rock groups, but felt he wasn't good enough at the instrument, and that even if he was "even a bass solo is not that satisfying. It is like putting a sail on a car." For a short time, Guettel expected he would become an actor, "like any American boy in the '80s", but gave up after auditioning for a production of The Sound of Music and being told that he acted like a "cancer patient" by director Jay Harnick. In his collegiate years and into his early twenties, Guettel worked as a rock and jazz musician, singing and playing bass, before realizing "that writing for character and telling stories through music was something that I really loved to do, and that allowed me to express love".
Mentorship by Stephen Sondheim and Mary Rodgers
Soon, turning to musical theatre composition, he was mentored by Stephen Sondheim. Guettel recalled how as a 14-year-old boy he showed Sondheim his work. Guettel was "crestfallen" since he had come in "sort of all puffed up thinking [he] would be rained with compliments and things", which was not the case since Sondheim had some "very direct things to say". Later, Sondheim wrote and apologized to Guettel for being "not very encouraging" when he was actually trying to be "constructive". He assured the 14-year-old Guettel that he thought him to be "literate, intelligent, and talented", and told him to "keep writing, because that's what we all do". Years later, Sondheim included Guettel's song "The Riddle Song" from Floyd Collins on his list of "songs he wished he'd written". Guettel credits Sondheim with his focus on clarity as the central rule in his writing. In September 2009, Guettel and Sondheim "broke down the art of songwriting" in an hour-long interview for the Dramatists Guild of America. After Sondheim's death, Guettel wrote the "last word" for the Library of Congress's magazine on his work.
When Guettel took up music composition in his mid-teens, his mother said that she offered him advice for around a year. "After that, he was so far beyond anything I could ever have dreamed of, I just backed off." Richard Rodgers, who died when Guettel was 15, overheard an early composition, said he liked it, and asked him to play it louder. Guettel has qualified the compliment, noting that "He was literally on his deathbed on the other side of the living-room wall."
Education Guettel attended Phillips Exeter Academy, School Year Abroad (SYA France) and Interlochen Center for the Arts. He attended Yale University, where he met frequent collaborator Tina Landau. Guettel wrote a song for a revue Landau was directing, the first of many collaborations between the pair. While at Yale, Guettel took time off from school to work as John Mauceri's assistant and the DX7 consultant on the Broadway musical Song and Dance.
Career 1987–1999: Early work and Floyd Collins
Post-college work After graduating from Yale University in 1987, Guettel's first major project was the score of The Legend of Oedipus, a retelling of the story of Oedipus directed by Nikos Psacharopoulos, head of the Williamstown Theater Festival. Guettel and Landau collaborated on an adaptation of A Christmas Carol produced by Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island 1989. According to Guettel, the production was a difficult experience. He recalls breaking his pencil point "about 45 times" during a run-through, taking notes on his problems with the way his score was being done. When Guettel told the musical director they needed more rehearsal time, they replied that there was no time. Guettel was "furious" and started punching a wall in the back of the theater, breaking his hand and wrist in three places. In the adaptation, Guettel used the original Dickens text as the lyrics. Fellow composer Ricky Ian Gordon wrote that there was a song in the show where the character, Belle, sings to Scrooge "I release you with a full heart for the love of him you once were", which made Gordon "almost burst into tears". Guettel said this experience taught him that he must "let go" to be a strong collaborator. Marjoree Samoff, producing director of the American Music Theater Festival saw the show and commissioned Guettel and Landau to write a new piece together.
Floyd Collins
Landau began to search for a subject for the two to work on. "The spark" came when Landau and Guettel discovered a 1976 American Heritage article titled "Dark Carnival", a recounting of the story of Floyd Collins. Guettel claims his fascination with Collins' story came from a personal link. "This is right when I'm starting my career in musical theatre with Richard Rodgers as my Grandfather... I think I was writing it, on some level, to process the likelihood that I wouldn't match his career, to answer if there's nobility in failing at something noble" Guettel adds that his confidence in the idea came from his mentor Stephen Sondheim believing it was good idea for a musical. Sondheim was a fan of Ace in the Hole, a film loosely based on Collins' story and said it's a "fun idea for a show". Floyd Collins was originally staged at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, in 1994, in a workshop where Guettel not only wrote the music and lyrics, but also starred as Floyd's brother, Homer. On the subject of adapting the true story of Floyd Collins, Guettel stated "We're true to the spirit of the story, but we are circling it for the most dramatic angle". The musical opened at Playwrights Horizons on February 9, 1996. In The New York Times review of the show, critic Ben Brantley noted "Mr. Guettel establishes himself as a young composer of strength and sophistication, weaving strands from the Americana of Copland and the uneasy dissonance of Sondheim". Later, Guettel would say that it was his time working on Floyd which made him certain that he would spend his life writing music for the theatre.
Saturn Returns/Myths & Hymns The second project he developed with Landau and Sperling was a song cycle titled Saturn Returns (recorded as Myths and Hymns). The piece musicalizes pieces of mythology, including the stories of Hero and Leander, Icarus, Medusa, as well as classic hymns. Discussing its genesis, Guettel stated "I had been writing these myths just because I was just starting out as a writer, and you don't know what to write. I did stuff that was tried and true. That was enough to keep me busy. Then I came across this book in an old antique shop... And it was just the words to a bunch of hymns... For some reason out of this Upper West Side Jew comes all of this music to these hymn lyrics". At first, Guettel was adapting the hymns and myths as separate projects, until Landau suggested they would work well together. "And we realized in some ways that the hymns are who we would have ourselves be, and the myths are basically who we are, and that they can kind of antiphonally talk to each other", said Guettel, in a 2021 New York Times interview on the online MasterVoices production of the piece. The piece was performed at The Public Theater and was later recorded by Nonesuch Records with performances by Billy Porter, Mandy Patinkin, Kristin Chenoweth, and Guettel himself.
Collaboration with Audra McDonald, incidental music, and concert work Guettel has written bespoke songs, including several songs throughout Audra McDonald's discography. Her 1998 album Way Back to Paradise includes his songs "Come to Jesus" (from Myths and Hymns), "A Tragic Story", "Baby Moon" and "The Allure of Silence". Her 2000 album's namesake is the closing number of Floyd Collins, "How Glory Goes", and also includes "Was That You". Her 2006 album is named after his song "Build a Bridge" and also includes "Dividing Day" (from The Light in the Piazza). Her 2018 album Sing Happy includes "March is a Windy Month" (from Millions). In 2003, it was announced that Guettel would be writing a new piece for McDonald which would have opened Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, but this piece never came to fruition.
In addition to writing music and lyrics for musical theatre, Guettel has written incidental music for plays such as Lydie Breeze (2000), as well as film scores. In summer 2007, Guettel composed incidental music for a production of Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya at the Intiman Playhouse in Seattle, Washington.
In 1999, Guettel performed a concert evening of his own work at New York's Town Hall with guests such as Kristin Chenoweth, Audra McDonald, Billy Porter, Jubilant Sykes and Theresa McCarthy. At first, Guettel resisted doing this concert at all, believing that his work had been heard enough in New York City, and he wanted to focus on writing something new, rather than having songs he had already written performed. It was Robert Hurwitz, the president of Nonesuch Records at the time, who insisted Guettel do the concert. Guettel has also contributed original scores to several documentary films, including Arguing the World and Jack: The Last Kennedy Film. In 2004, Guettel contributed vocals to Jessica Molaskey's P.S. Classics album Make Believe, dueting with Molaskey on his grandfather's song "Glad To Be Unhappy". Guettel also sang on albums by Ricky Ian Gordon, John Buccino, and starred opposite Meryl Streep in the short film The Music of Regret, singing several songs as a ventriloquist dummy. In 2001, he was set to sing as Charles on a studio recording of Evening Primrose. Guettel was beginning to write The Light in the Piazza, saying "bells were ringing, and things were starting to come out of me", and wanted to focus on his own work, rather than his mentor Sondheim's. Guettel was told by the producer of the album that it would not be a problem if he left the project, and that they would replace him with Neil Patrick Harris. After Guettel quit, he opened his mailbox to find a "withering" letter from Sondheim. They quickly reconciled. From then on, Guettel would primarily work as a composer/lyricist.
2005–2020: The Light at the Piazza, The Princess Bride, and other work
The Light in the Piazza