Michael Starobin and Carmel Dean to Be Honored at Transport Group Gala

Transport Group has announced that Tony Award-winning orchestrator Michael Starobin and composer Carmel Dean will be honored with the Transporting American Theatre Award at the company's annual gala, to be held on Monday, March 11, 2019 at the Current, Pier 59 @ Chelsea Piers. Past recipients of the award include Dick Scanlan, Mary-Mitchell Campbell, Michael John LaChiusa, Gretchen Shugart, Barbara Whitman, Beth Williams, Sue Frost, Christian Borle, Paul Huntley, Douglas Carter Beane, Lewis Flinn, A.R. Gurney, Liz Smith, Barbara Frietag, Terrence McNally, and Joe Mantello among others.

Carmel Dean is a New York-based, Australian-born composer, musical director, and arranger. Her first musical, Renascence, was recently produced off-Broadway with Transport Group. As a Broadway musical director and/or arranger, her credits include If/Then, Hands on a Hardbody, American Idiot, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Michael Starobin has been the orchestrator for such Broadway musicals as Falsettos, Sunday in the Park With George, Assassins (2004 Tony Award for Best Orchestrations), and Next to Normal (2009 Tony Award for Best Orchestrations). He was the conductor and orchestrator for Disney's animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, orchestrated the songs for Tangled, and contributed orchestrations to the film versions of Chicago, Nine, and Beauty and the Beast (2017), as well as the newly released Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

Currently headed by founder Jack Cummings III (artistic director) and Lori Fineman (executive director), Transport Group most recently produced the world-premiere musical, Renascence, with a book by Dick Scanlan, music by Dean, and lyrics from the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The company's next production will be The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, running from January 16-February 23, 2019 at the Playhouse at Abrons Arts Center.