Erin Kamler

Erin Kamler (born 1975) is an American writer, dramatist and composer with a specific interest in writing musicals based on memoir. A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kamler began performing in musicals at age nine, started her own production company at age ten and went on to write, compose and produce over fifteen musicals by age eighteen.

A three-time winner of Stephen Sondheim's Young Playwright's Festival, Kamler's plays have been staged at the Joseph Papp Public Theater and Playwrights Horizons, and she won the 1994 University of Michigan Hopwood Award for playwriting. Her musical Runway 69 is currently in development at New Dramatists where it won the 2008 Frederick Loewe Award, and her musical Divorce! The Musical made its world premiere at Los Angeles' Hudson Theater in 2009.

Erin is married to the American theater producer Richard Culbertson.

Recording and performance

Kamler has recorded three albums, The Street is not a Woman (1998), Mantra Girl: Truth (2002) and Mantra Girl: Trinity (2005). As a recording artist, she has performed to audiences in India, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Turkey and throughout the United States with her album material and Kundalini Yoga Instructional DVD's (2003). As a vocal instructor, Kamler has worked in the public and private school setting and teaches singing privately to children in Los Angeles.

Academic projects

A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College (1996), Kamler completed a master's degree in International Public Diplomacy at The University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication/ School of International Relations with a focus on Southeast Asia in 2010. At age sixteen, Kamler received an AFS scholarship to study abroad in Bangkok, Thailand. This experience fostered her interest in the Thai language, culture and politics. Kamler recently presented her paper Thai Nationalism and the Crisis of the Colonized Self at the South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Religion and Culture's 3rd annual conference in Bali, Indonesia. In October 2009 she presented her paper, National Identity, The Shan and Child Trafficking in Northern Thailand: The Case of D.E.P.D.C. at the International Conference on Shan Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and at the Journeys and Justice: Forced Migration, Seeking Asylum and Human Rights conference at the University of Leeds in the UK in January 2010. Kamler’s papers were published in 2010 in journals in Thailand and India. She recently conducted research at the Development Education Programme for Daughters and Communities, an NGO in Northern Thailand dedicated to preventing child trafficking, and worked at USC's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy researching the use of technology to combat trafficking in persons.

Musicals

Till Death Do Us Part (formerly entitled Divorce: The Musical)

Book, Music and Lyrics by Erin Kamler[1]

Drawing from personal experiences and sharp observations about the state of marriage and divorce in America today, Kamler and her team created a show that exposed divorce for what it really is: a social and legal process that treats human beings like cogs in a wheel. Combining comedy with theatrical songwriting, the show features greedy lawyers who instigate conflict in order to drag cases out and rake in the money, state laws that force vulnerable couples to publicly turn against each other during what should be a private time, therapists who are too consumed with their own problems to make a positive impact in their patient’s lives, and parents who get too emotional and take their children’s relationships personally.

The show depicts the tragic combination of love and expectation, the danger of miscommunication and disrespect, and the delicacy of a bond that often gets taken for granted. As Divorce! The Musical, the show made its 2009 world premiere at the Hudson Theater in Los Angeles where it garnered the LA Times Critic's Choice, Backstage West's Critic's Pick, won the 2009 Los Angeles Ovation Award for Best Book, Music and Lyrics for an Original Musical, won the 2010 Backstage Garland Award for Best Playwriting, the 2010 Backstage Garland Award for Best Musical Score, the 2009 LA Weekly Awards for Best Director and Musical Director, and was nominated for the 2010 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Original Score. The show was featured on NPR's All Things Considered[2] and Entertainment Tonight.

"Hilarious and tuneful... rare to find a comedic musical in which the trenchancy of the social commentary is as engaging as the songs," Les Spindle, Frontiers L.A. Magazine[3]

"Erin Kamler's witty and entertaining new musical satire takes apart almost every emotional phase of a marital breakup, including the horrors of dating and the hollows of rebound sex, and sets it to chirpy and wry songs that feature some sophisticated musical juxtapositions and harmonies." Steven Leigh Morris, LA Weekly[4]

"Erin Kamler... skillfully negotiates her slippery subject and scores a theatrical hat-trick", F. Kathleen Foley, L.A. Times[5]

"Erin Kamler's lyrics are universally real, hitting home… A remarkably fun show," Kate West, RAVE LA Times Reader Review

"Kamler's lyrics are funny as all get-out and perceptive as well... The show is first-rate all the way, " Steven Stanley, Stage Scene LA[6]

"Every divorce should be this fun," Ophelia Chong, KCET[7]

"A rollicking crowd-pleaser!" The Tolucan Times[8]

Runway 69

Winner of the 2008 Frederick Loewe Award, presented by New Dramatists. A new musical by Erin Kamler and Carson Kreitzer about that infamous strip club, set on the eve of the Times Square clean-up.

Upcoming projects

Kamler is currently at work on a new musical about Jewish women of different generations living in a Los Angeles suburb.

Notes

References

'Playwright Erin Kamler was influenced by Sondheim,' The Sondheim Review, 16, 1, Fall 2009


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