November 17, 2005

News, Jerry Block Musical Theatre Award

Theatre Composer Barry Wyner Receives Jerry Bock Award

BMI composer Barry Wyner has been named the winner of the 2005 BMI Foundation/Jerry Bock Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre for his musical, Calvin Berger.

This prestigious award was established in 1997 by Jerry Bock, BMI composer of such classics as Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello!, She Loves Me, The Apple Tree and The Rothschilds. The winner was personally chosen by Bock from the collective output of musicals developed in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

Pictured after the presentation are BMI Foundation President Ralph Jackson, Workshop Artistic Coordinator Pat Cook, Jerry Bock Award winner Barry Wyner, Workshop Steering Committee member Frank Evans, composer Jerry Bock, BMI Foundation Treasurer Gary Roth, BMI President & CEO Del Bryant and BMI Workshop Director Jean Banks

A hip update of Cyrano, Calvin Berger chronicles 12th grader Calvin Berger as he grapples with his insecurity about the size of his nose. Lacking the courage to ask out the girl of his dreams, he instead communicates his feelings to her through the handsome new kid in school...which only makes him want her more. The award-winning musical was recently previewed at Musicals Tonight!

Award recipient Barry Wyner is congratulated by composer Jerry Bock

Wyner's other original musicals include Sugar Plum (produced at Company Carolina and Gloucester Stage), Something to Say (reading, Manhattan Theater Club) and Kelleher Was Dumbstruck (produced at Access Theater, NYC). His emerging career and involvement with the BMI Workshop was chronicled on a Japanese state television documentary on NHK Network last spring. Previous winners of the Bock Award include Alison Hubbard and Kim Oler for The Enchanted Cottage. Ben Schaechter, Frank Evans and Julie Gilbert for Dinner at Eight, Jay Gaither and Cheryl Hawkins for Hurricane, and David Dreyfus and Jeffrey Hardy for A Trip to the Footbinder.

In this story: Calvin Berger, Jerry Bock, Del Bryant, Dinner at Eight, David Dreyfus, Lehman Engel, Frank Evans, Jay Gaither, Julie Gilbert, Jeffrey Hardy, Cheryl Hawkins, Alison Hubbard, Kim Oler, Ben Schaechter, Barry Wyner

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