ROMAN POLANSKI He was born in Paris in 1933, he was raised and educated in Poland where he attended Art School in Krakow and the famous State Film College in Lodz. Having made his stage acting debut at the age of fourteen, he continued to perform in the popular radio show "The Merry Gang". In his late teens, he appeared in Andrzej Wajda's film, GENERATION and in several other Wajda films before leaving Poland. In 1958, Polanski directed the short film TWO MEN AND A WARDROBE, and made three other short films: WHEN ANGELS FALL (1958), THE FAT AND THE LEAN (1958) and MAMMALS (1962). Polanski's feature film debut was KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962), which was the winner of the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival. KNIFE IN THE WATER was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film and was featured on the cover of TIME magazine. He made his English-language debut with REPULSION (1964), starring Catherine Deneuve, and then made CUL-DE-SAC (1965), which won the Best Picture prize at the Berlin Film Festival. His next film THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS or PARDON ME BUT YOUR TEETH ARE IN MY NECK (THE DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES), also presented Polanski in a starring role. Polanski marked his American directorial debut with ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay Adaptation. In 1972, Polanski returned to Europe to direct his adaptation (co-written with Kenneth Tynan) of Shakespeare's MACBETH, and in 1973, he directed Marcello Maistroianni in the absurdist comedy WHAT?.
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1994 marked Polanski's return to Hollywood with CHINATOWN, Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay, and nominated for eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Though proven a master of such quintessentially American genres as the detective yarn and the supernatural thriller, Polanski returned to Europe for the 1976 film THE TENANT. Once again, he played the starring role (having previously played supporting roles in WHAT? and CHINATOWN), and co-wrote the script. Working exclusively in Europe since 1977, Polanski next filmed TESS (1979), which won Academy Awards for Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design. In 1986, he filmed the adventure spoof PIRATES which was Oscar-nominated for Best Costume Design. Polanski's next film, the 1988 thriller FRANTIC, with Harrison Ford, marked the first starring role of Emmanuelle Seigner, who also starred in his most recent film BITTER MOON. Seigner and Polanski was married in 1989. In his following film, the DEATH AND THE MAIDEN Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley were starring. In 1999 he was awarded with “Pris René Clair” (life award) by the French Film Academy. THE PIANIST made in 2002 was awarded BAFTA-prise (2003) - best film, BAFTA-prise (2003) - best director, Academy Award (2003) - best director, and was nominated for Academy Award (2003) - best film, Caesar-prise (2002) - best director, Caesar-prise (2003) - best director. In 2002 on the Cannes Film Festival he was awarded Golden Palm. In 2006 the European Film Academy honoured him with life award, which will be handed over at the gala of the European Film Prise on 2nd December 2006.
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JIM STEINMAN (Composer, Lyricist, Book) Is known as a component as well as a producer of worldwide famous hits. More than 75 million of sound carrier has been sold in the last 18 years. The Who is Who of the Rock history has been singing his songs f.e. Meat Loaf, who he has been working with since his first worldwide success, as well as Bonny Tyler, Barbra Streisand, Taylor Dayne, Barry Manilow, The Sisters of Mercy and ultimately Celine Dion. Most of the words of the music are as well by Jim Steinman.
It is his musical style, a mixture of opera-theatricality and ecstatic rock that made him the "Richard Wagner of Rock". When he first met Wagner with the age of 9 he was immensely impressed and touched. A New York radio station once broadcasted the "Ring" in his original length of 22 hours and the boy didn't move during the whole presentation.
Jim Steinman's first epic musical "The Dream Engine" during his studies attracted the attention of Joseph Papp, the famous founder of the "New York Shakespeare Festival" who planed to perform his prime work at the Delacorte Theatre in the Central Park. But this never happened since the authorities said that it is too offensive and shill for a public cultural event.
Instead Papp appointed Steinman to write the music and words for the musical "More Than You Deserve" which was played for the first time in 1974. During the auditions Steinman met Meat Loaf "One of the most important moments in the history of Rock'n Roll" wrote the Spin Magazine.
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JIM STEINMAN
My music has always been described as theatrical or operatic, though most of what the public knows of my work has been in the general category of rock & roll or pop. But this makes perfect sense since I grew up listening to classical and rock equally, and my favourite classical music has always been operatic - in fact, my favourite comment from any critic was when the Los Angeles Time described me as "the Richard Wagner of rock". I started with Wagner and tried to see and / or hear everything and every opera I could get my hands on. By the 1960's, I was a rock & roll fanatic, but also was lucky enough to sit in the Metropolitan Opera. The most thrilling performances I have ever seen were "Tristan and Isolde" conducted by Karl Böhm; The Who debuting "Tommy" in America; and Harold Prince's productions of Sondheim's "Follies" and "Sweeney Todd".
I have never written any song without first imagining a theatrical context for it. I always start by conjuring a world, a setting, a character, an action and a dramatic foundation for every single song. I had many reasons to be excited about the chance to compose the score for "Dance of the Vampires". I had seen the film when it came out in the 1960's. I have always been a huge Roman Polanski fan. At one time, I worked on a musical version for Murnau silent movie "Nosferatu" and have always thought that vampires were the perfect subject for a musical / opera. I should mention that many have suspected I am a vampire myself, since my normal sleeping hours are always during daylight. My nickname is "Prince Of Darkness".
My work with "Tanz der Vampire" is my turning back to Musicals after 22 years. Today lots of people expect an uprising of the traditional rooted Musical-theatre. The music of successful Musicals always reflects the life in the streets, but what reflected "Hello Dolly!" in the 60s? Nothing at all. At this time the Musical-theatre neutralized from temporary music. The Rock'n'Roll could be able to make a change.
Michael Kunze was born on November 9, 1943 in Prague, and grew up in Munich, where he studied law, history and philosophy. In the late 1960s, he started to write pop songs, and soon became one of the best known songwriters of Germany. His recordings dominated the charts of the 1970s in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. When he eventually produced his first international act, he hit the top of both the Billboard and Cashbox charts in the United States ("Fly, Robin, Fly"). His group, Silver Convention, represented by composer Sylvester Levay and Michael Kunze himself, was the first German aggregation ever to win the coveted Grammy Award.
Based on his spectacular success in the U.S. - after "Fly, Robin, Fly" came such hits as "Lady Bump" and "Get up and Boogie" - Michael produced albums with a vast and varied array of internationally known performers, including Julio Iglesias, Nana Mouskouri, Herbie Mann, Lulu, Gilbert Bécaud, Sister Sledge and Caterina Valente.
At the top of his success, he took a breather from show business and wrote a book, "Highroad to the Stake", that not only was awarded the 1981 Faculty Prize by the Munich University Law School, but also was translated into several languages.
In the 1980s, the musical began making its way into the centre of Michael Kunze's activities. First, he adapted Andrew Lloyd Webbers musical "Evita" , which was the beginning of his collaboration and friendship with the legendary Broadway director, Harold Prince. The success of his adaptation opened the doors of the German-speaking market for the modern Anglo-American musical. Michael's reputation is in making the German versions sound as if they were the original.
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As an adaptor, he has been connected to the success of many international shows in the German-speaking countries, among them Follies, Evita, Cats, A Chorus Line, Phantom of the Opera, Company, Little Shop of Horrors, Into the Woods, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Sunset Boulevard, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King, Aida and Mamma Mia!.
From the 1990s on, Michael started to create original musicals in his own style. His first show was an open air spectacle, Hexen Hexen (Witches). It drew an audience of sixty thousand to the historic site where it was performed (Heilbronn, Germany). In September 1992, his musical Elisabeth, about the life of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, opened at Vienna's prestigious "Theater an der Wien" (music: Sylvester Levay). The show ran in Vienna for almost six years and was regarded as the re-birth of the contemporary continental musical theatre in Europe. It was soon exported to other countries, such as Japan, Hungary, Sweden, Holland and Germany.
Collaborating with Roman Polanski (director) and Jim Steinman (composer), Michael wrote his first English libretto and lyrics for the musical, Dance of the Vampires. A German version opened in October 1997 at the Viennese Raimund Theater to raving reviews. The show was transferred to Stuttgart, Germany on March 3, 2000, where it became a cult musical and box office phenomenon. It opened in Hamburg in December 2003 where it ran for another three years before it opened in Berlin.
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His musicals are regarded the foundation of a new genre of the contemporary popular musical theatre, called the "dramamusical". It is characterized by an elaborate dramatic structure which integrates elements of the film structure into the classic two act drama form. Michael likes to describe himself as "an architect of the musical drama".
Apart from Grammy and Echo Lifetime Award, Michael is the recipient of 3 Golden Europe and 2 Best Musical (Image 1996 and Image 1998) awards, Musical Of The Year Award 2000 (Mozart!), 2001 (Elisabeth) and 2003 (Dance Of The Vampires). 56 of his records gained gold and 23 gained platinum status. He is the member of GEMA, the German Drama Association and the New York Drama League Inc.
STEVE MARGOSHES is the composer of the international hit musical FAME. The inspirational musical about New York City's High School of Performing Arts is now being performed on every continent in the world in English, Swedish, Spanish, Hungarian, Dutch, Danish, Polish and Japanese and Korean. The past five years. Steve has been collaborating with FAME creator David De Silva to produce a new body of work for symphony orchestra. These "light classical" pieces, which he composed and orchestrated under the banner SYMPHONIC FAME, introduce new works for piano, violin and trumpet.
Steve's work as an orchestrator in the theater include The Who's Tommy, Smoke Joe's Cafe, (the songs of Leiber and Stoller), Jim Steinman and Roman Polanski's Dance of the Vampires, and the Elton John / Tim Rice musical Aula. Born in New York, he attended the Juilliard School of Music. And. oh yes, his grandmother was Hungarian.
MICHAEL REED feels at home in all the different genres of music today, be it symphonic music or the musical theatre, television or studio recording. He has conducted over 20 West End shows including: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, BARNUM and SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. As "Musical Supervisor" he has supervised Andrew Lloyd Webber's productions all over the world and hosted the Previews of Jim Steinman/Webber WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND in Washington. He composed the dance music for VICTOR/VICTORIA as well as two musicals for Warner Bros. Among others, Reed has been guest conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. As a regular guest in the Studio of BBC Radio Two, he has conducted the recordings of GUYS & DOLLS, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC as well as JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He was responsible for the Eurovision Song Contest and the "Royal Gala for the Prince's Trust". The bulk of his "Cast-Albums" he has made so far include producing a special 20th anniversary recording of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, conducting Michael Crawford's Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber album, Sarah Brightman's album "Surrender", José Carreras' album "Passion" and Betty Buckley's album "The London Concert". Presently, Reed is writing the music of a new Holiday on Ice-Revue.