John Franceschina, composer, arranger, musical director, has composed scores for the National Shakespeare Company, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Baltimore's Center Stage, Washington’s Ford's Theatre, the Arena Stage, the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, GeVa Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Papermill Playhouse, Music Theatre Works, and the Moscow Art Theatre, in addition to the Asolo State Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, where he acted as composer-in-residence from 1976 to 1993. His fifth symphony, Oroonoko, was premiered in the Netherlands in October 2008, and other symphonic works have been heard at Carnegie Hall and performed by major symphony orchestras around the world. As a pianist/arranger, he has accompanied Angela Lansbury, Elke Sommer, Nell Carter, Jan Peerce, Robert Merrill, Lotte Lenya, Paige O’Hara, Chita Rivera, and Gwen Verdon, and he has served as conductor and arranger for a number of off-Broadway shows, including Chase a Rainbow, The Boy Who Made Magic, The Rise of David Levinski, and Be Kind to People Week. In New York City, he most recently directed the 50^th anniversary production of Michael Mcclure’s ground-breaking play, The Beard. He is the author of Sisters of Gore, Gore on Stage, The Plays of the Marquis de Sade, Homosexualities in the English Drama from Lyly to Wilde, Duke Ellington's Music for the Theatre, David Braham: the American Offenbach, Harry B. Smith: Dean of American Librettists, They Started Talking, Socialists, Socialites, and Sociopaths: the Plays of Frank Tuttle, and Against the Grain: Theatre from Ritual to Realism.