About

Laura Kleinbaum

(she/her) is a Los Angeles-based theatre and television writer. Her immersive pop/EDM musical Cleopatra (with collaborator Jeff Daye) premiered Off-Broadway at Chelsea Musical Hall.  Laura’s musical theatre works include #MARS (with composer Willem Oosthuysen), developed at Manhattan Musical Theatre Lab, New York Theatre Barn, and New York Film Academy; A Year in Jackson (with composer Joey Contreras) developed at the University of Nebraska Theatre Department; Allie in Wonderland and Robbie and Julia: A Summercamp Story (both with composer Ben Wexler) both commissioned by Metropolitan Montessori School; and Puritan/Lesbian/Witch, (with composer and co-bookwriter Christiana Cole). Laura’s musical podcast Murder-Cult the Musical the Podcast is also in the works. It’s a comedy!

Laura has written scripts and songs for Emmy award winning and nominated shows on Netflix, Nickelodeon, Sprout, and Sesame Workshop/HBO, including Bubble Guppies, Butterbean’s Cafe, Esme & Roy, Colorforms, Rusty Rivets, Zoofari, Sprout House, Totems, and Made by Maddie. Currently, she develops new children’s properties for Silvergate Media, which she can’t describe, but she promises they are cool.

Laura attended Columbia University, where she wrote her first musicals, and earned her MFA from the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild and the Lehman Engel BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop, where she was awarded the Jean Banks Award for Best Musical and the Ellen Schwartz Award for Outstanding Literary Merit in Lyric Writing.

Christiana Cole

Mx. Christiana Cole (they/them) moved from Austin, Texas to New York to study opera at the Manhattan School of Music. But while they were in school, Christiana began sneaking into composition classes, and convinced the registrar to let them cross-register at Columbia University, where they studied creative writing. Christiana studied composition with Dr. Mark Stambaugh and Christopher Cerrone. Christiana served as dramaturg on Cerrone’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated opera Invisible Cities. Christiana’s first full-scale work was Bombshell Baby, a musical about a drag queen who fights Nazis. (Christiana wrote book/lyrics and co-wrote the music with Rachel Felstein.) Bombshell Baby was presented in a sold-out run at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in July 2012.

Christiana is a 2020-2021 Dramatist Guild Fellow, and a member of the the Advanced Songwriting Workshop and Librettists Workshop within the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Writers Workshop. Current projects include Tribe Without a God, a Neolithic comedy; Republicana, a country rock drama about a small town during a plague; Apocrypha, the untold true story of the founding of the Christian church; and with Laura Kleinbaum, Puritan/Lesbian/Witch, a time-traveling coming out musical.

Christiana has written a number of musicals for children, including Peanut Butter and Cupcake (based on the best-selling children’s book by Terry Border) and Sparkle Spa (based on the Scholastic series by Jill Santopolo), which were both produced at Interlakes Theatre in New Hampshire. Christiana wrote lyrics, with music by Rogers Award-winner Brad Ross (Little by Little) and book by New York Times best-selling author Jill Santopolo (The Light We Lost). Their adaptation of The Frog Prince (written with Kristin Madden and Brennan Johnson) was commissioned and produced by Random Farms Kids Theatre, and has subsequently been licensed and produced across Asia, in Japan, China and Korea.

Christiana is a classically-trained opera singer who learned how to belt. The New York Times called Christiana Cole “top-notch.” Seen performing at: Playwrights Horizons, Ars Nova, City Center, 54 Below, Musical Theatre Factory, Queens Theatre, York Theatre, Labyrinth Theatre Company, O’Neill Theatre Center, Transport Group. Recently: “Rose Arbuthnot” in An Enchanted April (Off-Bway), “Big Alison” in Fun Home (TheatreSquared).

Christiana is a studio singer for legendary composer Philip Glass. They are Tony-winner Joanna Gleason’s backup singer. They were featured on the soundtrack of hit film The Farewell, starring the rapper Awkwafina. Christiana is a winner of NPR’s The MOTH Story Slam, and was featured on The MOTH GrandSlam, where they told a story about a weird thing they did when they were 8. And for 8 years, Christiana was the head cantor at Divine Mercy Parish (Roman Catholic) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Christiana has taught voice lessons for fifteen years. In addition to their private studio, Christiana has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University, University of Lynchburg, and SUNY New Paltz, and on the voice faculty at the New York Film Academy Professional Conservatory of Musical Theater. They are hired by composers and producers as a consultant on vocal lines and general singing questions. They tutor aspiring writers and mentor aspiring voice teachers. They are available for script consultation.

Christiana’s Christmas album “A Cozy Christmas with Christiana Cole” is available on iTunes, Amazon, and all major streaming platforms. They live in New Jersey with their husband, actor Aaron Phillips, and their two dogs, Mildred and Reginald. Christiana is autistic and a trans non-binary person.