ERIC ROCKWELL is a musician, teacher, dramatist and award-winning composer of several critically-acclaimed musicals. His work has been produced off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally.
A 2004 Drama Desk nominee for best music, Eric composed the score and co-wrote the book to The Musical of Musicals (the Musical!) which, after two years of performances in New York, went on to have success on London’s West End, as well as in regional theatres from coast to coast.
Eric was a member of the BMI-Lehman Engle Musical Theatre Workshop, where in addition to creating Musical of Musicals, he developed the score to A Little Princess, which was chosen for both the Dramatists Guild New Musicals Project and the New Tuners Festival at the Chicago Theatre Building.
Mr. Rockwell has composed the scores to several musicals for children, including Golly Gee Whiz, a loving satire of the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney movie musicals of the thirties. The show was featured on Lincoln Center's Reel to Real series, and recently won a National Youth Theatre award for outstanding original musical. Other shows created for young audiences include The Trials of Alice in Wonderland, based on the work of Lewis Carroll, The History Mystery, a musical time-travel adventure and Princess Phooey, a very fractured fairytale. Eric collaborated with several of his colleagues to create Everything About School (almost), an irreverent but loving look at elementary, junior high, and high school. All these shows were originally produced by the TADA! Theatre Company in New York City.
For several years, Eric was the resident music director of TADA! and taught theatre and music extensively in the New York area. At the Rockwell Music Studio, he offers private instruction in piano and voice. An actor and singer himself, Eric has performed many musical theatre and light opera roles in off-Broadway and regional theatres. As a pianist, Mr. Rockwell is in the process of recording the complete canon of 19th century composer Stephen Heller.
As a "serious" composer, Mr. Rockwell made his Carnegie Hall debut with a heartwarming Christmas carol entitled The Annoying Drummer Boy.
