Broadway composer Charles Strouse in New York Metropolis in 2011. Strouse died Thursday, Might 15, 2025, at 96.
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Andy Kropa/Getty Photos
Broadway composer Charles Strouse in New York Metropolis in 2011. Strouse died Thursday, Might 15, 2025, at 96.
Andy Kropa/Getty Photos
Tony Award-winning Broadway composer Charles Strouse has died. The creator of the hit musicals Bye Bye Birdie, Applause and Annie died at his house in New York Metropolis on Thursday, in response to a press launch shared with NPR by The Press Room. Strouse was 96.
His 4 kids, Benjamin, Nicholas, Victoria, and William, shared the information of his passing. He was predeceased by his spouse, choreographer Barbara Siman, in 2023 after six many years of marriage.
Strouse was a musical chameleon, stated theater historian Laurence Maslon. “Strouse was a fantastic craftsperson. He adopted and tailored his vocabulary to regardless of the wants of the actual style have been.”
He may write songs within the model of early rock and roll, like “One Final Kiss” from Bye Bye Birdie, or Melancholy-Period New York, like “You are By no means Totally Dressed With out A Smile” in Annie, or ultra-groovy Nineteen Seventies New York, as in “However Alive” from Applause.
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Strouse was classically educated on the Eastman College of Music in Rochester, New York, and labored with American composer Aaron Copland. He was making a residing enjoying rehearsal piano for Broadway exhibits till a stage supervisor who wished to be a producer approached him, as he informed NPR in 2008.
“And he stated to me, ‘I hear you write music,'” Strouse recounted. “And I stated, ‘Sure, I do.’ He stated, ‘I’ve an thought for a present about youngsters, would you have an interest?’ I stated, ‘Would I!'”
The present was Bye Bye Birdie. It opened in 1960 and, regardless that the New York Instances panned it (calling it “neither fish nor fowl nor good musical comedy”), the present turned an infinite hit, profitable the Tony for Finest Musical. And since then, it has been some of the carried out exhibits in neighborhood theaters and excessive faculties.
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“It is a fantastic feeling. And I’m modest, although not humbled in any method,” Strouse informed NPR. “However I am a really fortunate man.”
Although he suffered a string of flops afterwards, Strouse had one other Tony Award-winning smash in 1970 with Applause, a musical model of All About Eve.
Strouse heard much more applause, and in 1977, he gained a Tony Award for finest rating, with Annie, primarily based on the sketch “Little Orphan Annie.” He stated the best-known track from that rating, “Tomorrow,” was written in rehearsal, simply to cowl a set change.
“She discovered the canine and he or she needed to, in 12 seconds, to illustrate, get again to the orphanage,” he defined. “So, we would have liked a track there.”
Andrea McArdle was 12 years outdated when she starred in Annie. “My favourite factor was to take heed to him play his songs,” McArdle stated. “Not each composer is as charming as Charles Strouse is when he performs his music.”
Strouse stored working into his 80s on new initiatives, at a time when most creators would have been glad resting on their laurels.
“I like composing, I like it,” Strouse stated. “You recognize, and if I am not composing, if I haven’t got a brand new challenge or one thing, I am relatively at a lack of what to do.”
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