Adryan Russ

Adryan conceived and wrote music and lyrics for Inside Out, the award-winning off-Broadway musical, co-written with playwright Doug Haverty, produced by Richard Frankel, Marc Routh and Randy Kelly. The musical originated as Roleplay at Group Repertory Theatre in Los Angeles and was further developed by The Colony Theatre. Inside Out was published by Samuel French, and the original cast CD distributed by DRG Records. It has been produced across the U.S, including The Cherry Lane in New York, The Colony Theatre, The Phoenix Theatre, The Laguna Playhouse, Florida Studio Theater in Sarasota, Barnsdall Gallery Theatre (directed by Kay Cole) and two European productions, among others. The New York Times called it "a bright, witty and wise musical about the way we live now." Adryan is developing Ebenezer: Return of the Scrooge with award-winning and recently acclaimed Chicago playwright Keith Huff (for Broadway's A Steady Rain) for which she wrote music and co-wrote lyrics. It was selected for the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop, Chicago. She and Haverty were commissioned by Canada's Stages to develop a new musical, iGhost, inspired by Oscar Wilde's story "The Canterville Ghost," - hear selections at PlayWorksMusic. Haverty and Russ' musical Love & Order was selected for presentation at the ASCAP/ Disney Workshop in Los Angeles. For Storybook Theatre in Los Angeles, Adryan has written music and lyrics for the children's musical The Ugly Duckling with bookwriter/TV writer/producer Lloyd J. Schwartz ("The Brady Bunch," "Gilligan's Island") for Los Angeles' Theatre West, and it has been selected to play there again from March 2011 through the summer. Two of her short musicals, In A Different Light and Two Lives, co-written with Haverty, were part of an evening of short plays in 2009. Adryan participated in a tribute to Charles Strouse, with Michael Feinstein, at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall; and at Chicago Humanities Festival's "ASCAP Cabaret: Her Turn" with Karen Mason, and an array of Chicago cabaret performers. LML Music released Everyone Has A Story: The Songs of Adryan Russ, produced by Bruce Kimmel and arranged by Grant Geissman. Her songs are performed by some of Los Angeles and Broadway stages' best, including David Burnham, Tami Tappan Damiano, Susan Egan, Jason Graae, Juliana Hansen, Sharon McNight and Joan Ryan. Adryan wrote the lyric for "White Lies" for the film The Check Is In The Mail, with Brian Dennehy and Ann Archer; and music and lyrics for several animated features and theme park presentations for Landmark Entertainment. She has collaborated with television and film composers, writing lyrics to their music. Her song co-written with Joel Evans appeared in John Patrick Shanley's film Doubt with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. That song, "Is It Me?," plays in The Falcon Theatre's 2011 production of A Catholic Girl's Guide to Losing Your Virginity. Every year, for the past 10 years, Adryan has received an ASCAP Award for Popular Music, based on numerous cabaret and musical theater performances by cabaret artists and theaters for that year. She holds a master's degree in English with a minor in music theory from the University of Illinois. She is a longtime member of ASCAP, The Dramatists Guild, the Academy for New Musical Theatre (ANMT), the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS), and currently serves on the Board of The Society of Composers & Lyricists.