Breathe, by composer Dan Martin and lyricist Michael Biello, is an award-winning collection of 7 short musical stories that celebrate gay and lesbian life.
Biello & Martin have collaborated for over 25 years, creating a unique body of critically and popularly acclaimed work in musical theater. Their work has enjoyed success in Chicago, where Bailiwick's production of Breathe ran for 10 weeks and won the 1999 After Dark Award for Outstanding New Work. In 2000, Q -- the Songs of Martin & Biello enjoyed a 9 week Chicago run.
Recent productions of Breathe include a 2005 run at Richmond Triangle Players, the 2004 Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian Theatre Festival (featured on this recording), and in 2003 at SNAP! Productions in Omaha (Nominated for 8 TAG Awards). The 2002 Philadelphia Fringe Festival production of Martin & Biello’s Q won the Philadelphia Weekly's annual theater award for Best Original Music.
Their musical theater work has also been presented in New York at American Opera Projects, New Dramatists, Musical Theater Works, HERE, the TWEED Festival, BAX, and PS 122, among others, in Miami at City Theatre, in Washington DC at DCAC, in Provincetown MA at the UU Church, and in San Francisco at the People's Theater Coalition.
Martin & Biello's songs have been widely performed - from LaMama to Lincoln Center, on ABC, PBS, and on a variety of recordings. Selected highlights include a performance of their song Table 3 in June 2001 by Tony Award winner Karen Ziemba at New York's Merkin Concert Hall as part of a concert featuring the work of 13 new Broadway musical theater writers and a performance of their anthem What We Believe is Right at the 1993 March On Washington for an audience of 300,000 people.
Additional career highlights include their dance/theater/music pieces of the late 1970s and early 1980s Two Men Dancing and How I Spent My Summer Vacation; 1984's musical X-posed; and a series of innovative performance art musicals in the early and mid 1990's including Homo Love Song and Human Being.
Recordings of Martin & Biello's songs include Tom Bogdan's GLAMA nominated version of You Do Not Know Me on his L'Amour Blue CD (Sweet Boy Records, 1999) and Lay Your Burden Down, recorded with the Lavender Light Gospel Choir on the landmark compilation CD A Love Worth Fighting For, A Celebration of Gay and Lesbian Singers and Songwriters (Streeter Music, 1995).
Biello & Martin are the co-founders of OUTMUSIC, the international LGBT musician’s network of which Martin is the current Board chair. They live and work in Philadelphia and are members of The Dramatists Guild and New York's BMI/Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theater Workshop.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT BREATHE:
“A joyous new musical…Breathe honors the extraordinary in the ordinary, offering a refreshing and uplifting take not just on gay and lesbian life, but on life in general.”
David Timberline, Richmond Style Weekly, 2/9/05
“Martin's technically complex and intensely melodic music, which at times recalls the work of William Finn or even Stephen Sondheim, is matched by thoughtful lyrics from Biello. Martin has forged a sophisticated score that's not a pastiche of pop stylings but a unified and quite beautiful composition. A very likable and moving show.”
Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, 6/22/99
“Breathe is the must-see theatrical event of the season. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, bi, male, female, young or old, Breathe goes beyond sexual orientation to reach into our humanity. One of the best musicals I’ve seen in years."
Julien R. Fielding, Omaha Weekly Reader, 3/13/03
“Breathe is a bold and deeply emotional piece that’s something like a combination of Stephen Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown. Split into seven distinct sections, the show focuses on the power, courage, wisdom, beauty and magic of gay life."
J. Cooper Robb, Philadelphia Weekly, 6/16/04
“If there is any justice in the world, Breathe should end up on Broadway as a defining piece of gay American theater.”
Rick Reed, Outlines, 6/23/99
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