PETER MILLS (composer / lyricist / co-bookwriter)

Peter received the 2010 Kleban Award for lyrics, the 2007 Fred Ebb Award for emerging songwriters, 2006 Drama Desk Award nominations for his show The Pursuit Of Persephone (Best Music and Best Orchestrations), the 2003 Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and a 2002 grant from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation.

He supplied lyrics for Iron Curtain, (book by Susan DiLallo, music by Stephen Weiner), which received the 2006 IT Award for Best Musical, was workshopped at the 2008 Eugene O'Neill Musical Theatre Conference and showcased at the 2009 NAMT Festival.

Illyria, a musical adaptation of Twelfth Night, had its regional premiere at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Fall 2004, with a cast album released in April 2005. The show is now licensed by Theatrical Rights Worldwide. And Peter's first full-length show, The Taxi Cabaret, was published by Samuel French in Fall 2004.

With Cara Reichel, he wrote The Flood, which was selected for the 2001 ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop. Marco Polo, written with composer Deborah Abramson, was selected for the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop in 2000, and Peter and Deborah were chosen as 2000-01 Dramatists Guild Fellows.

As composer/lyricist, other shows include The Alchemists, Lonely Rhymes, The Rockae, and Honor.

Peter holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theater Writing from New York University's Tisch School for the Arts and a degree in English/Dramatic Literature from Princeton University. He is a founding member of Prospect Theater Company.



CARA REICHEL (director / co-bookwriter)

Cara was born in Oxford, Mississippi, and grew up in Rome, Georgia. Since the Prospect’s founding in 1998, Cara has worked to establish the company as a vital presence in NYC’s theater community. She has directed numerous company productions including The Book of the Dun Cow, The House of Bernarda Alba, DIDO (& Aeneas), Danton’s Death, Twelfth Night, Everyman, and others.

Through Prospect, she has collaborated frequently with composer and lyricist Peter Mills, as well as other emerging and established writers. Together with Mills, she has created Honor, The Rockae, The Pursuit of Persephone, The Taxi Cabaret, The Flood, Illyria, Lonely Rhymes, and The Alchemists, new musical theater works which have been recognized by organizations such as ASCAP, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation.

She also recently collaborated with Susan DiLallo, Peter Mills, and Stephen Weiner on Iron Curtain, a new musical which was developed in July 2008 at the O’Neill Theatre Center, which received the 2006 Innovative Theatre Award for “Outstanding Production of a Musical,” and for which she also received an “Outstanding Director” nomination.

Cara has also recently directed for the Village Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals, Oberon Theatre Ensemble, PASSAJ Productions, GMT Productions (Rome, GA), the Goodwill Theatre (Binghamton, NY) and the Gallery Players.

She was honored to receive the 2002 “Lucille Lortel Award” for Emerging Women Artists from the League of Professional Theatre Women, an organization for which she now serves on the Board of Directors. And, she was selected to receive 2004 and 2007 “New Directors / New Works” Grants from the Drama League.

Cara was educated at Princeton University, from which she graduated in 1996 with an A.B. in Anthropology and a Certificate in Theater, and in the M.F.A. Program for Directing at Brooklyn College, where she was named 2006 “Alumna of the Year.”

She has worked at such notable NYC non-profits as Manhattan Theatre Club, American Ballet Theatre, and HERE Arts Center. Cara has also published a children’s book, A Stone Promise, which she wrote and illustrated (Landmark Editions Inc., 1991). She is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the League of Professional Theatre Women, the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and is a Trustee of the Princeton Triangle Club.