Michael Wartofsky

Position
Professor
Affiliated Departments
Faculty Bio E-Mail
Telephone
617-747-8495

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Michael Wartofsky is a professor in the Songwriting Department, where he established an undergraduate minor in musical theater writing in 2015, cofounded the annual Curtain Up musical theater student songwriting contest and concert, and won a Distinguished Faculty Award in 2018. His album All the Possibilities: Broadway Sings Wartofsky on Yellow Sound Label, features 12 breathtaking Broadway voices interpreting his original songs. His upcoming musical LATE, with the book and lyrics by Kathleen Cahill, responds to the epidemic of school shootings.

Wartofsky composed the musicals Car Talk: The Musical!!! and Cupcake, both produced in Boston in 2012, and wrote the music and lyrics for The Man in My Head, starring Darius de Haas, at the New York Musical Theatre Festival 2006. In 2014, he was a finalist in the Davenport Musical Theater Songwriting Contest, and his song "Without Your Love" was released on Write This Way, a solo album by John Michael Dias. In 2013, Wartofsky's songs were featured in the revue Never Far from Home at Central Square Theater, with a script by Broadway playwright Lydia Diamond, and in The Concert, hosted by Seth Rudetsky, at Second Stage in New York City. The Broadway Boys have performed "All the Possibilities" on numerous occasions, and it was named one of the top 25 songs of 2012 by ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com.  

Career Highlights
  • All the Possibilities: Broadway Sings Wartofsky released on Yellow Sound Label, 2019, produced by Sean Patrick Flahaven with music direction by Eric Stern
  • Arrangements include music direction and English lyrics for two Klezmer tunes on Yazhi Guo's 2018 album Endless Journey, which won Best Instrumental Album Performance of the Year at the 13th Hi-Fi Album Awards in China
  • Recordings include "Without Your Love," recorded by John Michael Dias on his album Write This Way, 2014
  • Compositions include Cupcake, seven-week run at Boston's Club Cafe, 2012; Car Talk: The Musical!!!, 14-week run at Central Square Theater, 2012; and The Libertine (directed by Eric Tucker) and Winters' Tale (directed by Tina Packer), Friendship of the Sea (directed by Wes Savick), and The Navigator (directed by Daniella Topol), all musicals commissioned by North Shore Music Theatre, Beverly, Massachusetts
  • Composer/lyricist for The Man in My Head, a one-man musical starring Darius de Haas, at the New York Musical Festival 2006 (directed by Schele Williams)
  • Founding director of the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative (NOMTI)
Awards
  • Winner of the Distinguished Faculty Award, 2018
Education
  • M.F.A., Tisch School of the Arts, graduate musical theater writing program
  • M.M., New England Conservatory
  • B.A., Harvard College
In Their Own Words

"I want to empower my students to discover new methods of creation, vocabulary, tools, and habits for success, and faith in their own power to transform the foundation they gain at Berklee into a lifetime of learning, creating, and inspiring the next generation."

"As a frequent collaborator in musical theater, I challenge my students to find the best in each other through frequent cowriting. And as successful musicals surprise the audience, I expand that concept of surprise to all songwriting, providing the listener with something fresh that they didn't know they wanted."

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