Music & Lyrics by Jonathan Spivey
Music & Lyrics by Jonathan Spivey
While his first love is acting, Jonathan has played the piano since the age of six and has enjoyed making use of that skill onstage and off.
His original songs feature lyrics that celebrate wordplay, and his musical style honors the tradition of the Great American songbook. The satirical parody songs of Tom Lehrer have also been a major influence.
Music & Lyrics by Tom Lehrer
Music & Lyrics by Tom Lehrer
Jonathan is the writer and performer of the one-man-and-a-piano show Rodgersandhart in which he plays three characters: spitfire lyricist Lorenz Hart, legendary composer Richard Rodgers, and Doc Bender, Hart’s confidante and drinking buddy at New York’s gay bars in the 30s and 40s. The eighty minute play with music features some of Rodgers and Hart’s most iconic songs like Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Blue Moon, and The Lady Is A Tramp. Jonathan workshopped the show at Radford University in Virginia in March 2018 after a successful staged reading at Dixon Place in New York City the year before.
Jonathan is also the co-author of Talmadge & Ray, a play with music written and performed with frequent collaborator Andy Nagraj. Set in a small Southern Baptist Church in the fictional town of Stillwater, this comedy with music explores the unexpected friendship between closeted choir director Talmadge Fox and Indian American plumber Ray Patel using sitcom-style humor. The play was one of four finalists out of ninety-one submissions in the inaugural SoQueer Playwriting Festival and has received developmental workshops at Silk Road Rising in Chicago and Dixon Place in New York City.
Jonathan co-wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the musical Murphy’s Law with Andy Nagraj. The musical received its received its professional premiere in Pittsburgh in the spring of 2016 after workshops and readings in San Diego, Michigan, Utah, and Virginia, and at Dixon Place in New York City. The road-trip musical comedy follows the plight of everyman Dave Spring who sets out on a road trip in search of answers when everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
Jonathan Spivey 