David Hudson and Paul Libman (left to right)

Chicago composer Paul Libman and lyricist David Hudson have been named winners of the prestigious 2005 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre. The pair won for Bringers, adapted from Carl Sandburg's "Cornhuskers," a 1918 collection of rural-inspired poems that won Sandburg his second Pulitzer Prize. This year, the Richard Rodgers Award carries with it cash grants of $3,000 each to Libman and Hudson, plus a hefty $40,000 towards the cost of a fully-staged reading at a theatre TBA in New York City.

Hudson was first to formulate the idea of creating songs inspired by—but not literally taken from—Sandburg's "Cornhuskers." He jokes that he approached Libman aggressively with his concept. "One morning, 17 lyrics showed up on Paul's computer." The show's title, Bringers, is taken from one of the poems. It's not a narrative show, but a song cycle or musical revue in which the cast reads one of Sandburg's poems followed by the song inspired by that poem. Collectively, it's an elegy to Midwestern prairie life of the early 20th century. Musically, Libman's tuneful score counts folk music, ragtime, waltzes, church hymns and swing jazz among its influences. Bringers is designed for 12 singer/dancers and a band of four to six.

Hudson and Libman met online four years ago through the Yahoo group Musical Makers. Both lived in Chicago, and Hudson worked just two blocks from Libman's downtown home, so they soon met over coffee and began to exchange ideas. Hudson brought Libman into New Tuners (now the Writers' Workshop) at Theatre Building Chicago, where Hudson was a member. Their first joint effort, Muskie Love, was produced last summer at the American Folklore Theatre in Door County, WI, which will stage it again this summer.

Hudson grew up in various Western states and was drawn to Chicago in 1994 to pursue a theatre career. In addition to his work with Libman, Hudson's work includes Just So (with composer Leah Okimoto) produced at the Open Door Repertory in Oak Park, and St. Peter's Umbrella (with London-based composer Denise Wright) to be produced in March at Theatre Building Chicago.

Libman is one of the city's most successful commercial composers whose award-winning advertising songs have graced scores of industrial films and thousands of TV and radio ads for Keebler, Kellogg's, Kraft and other klients (sic). Libman was a partner in the Imagineers, a successful music house and studio of the 1970's, before opening Libman Music in 1980. A late-bloomer in terms of legitimate theatre, Libman wrote the scores for Pitch Man, produced at St. Clement Church in 2002, and Dear Father, a work about Franz Kafka seen at the Los Angeles Edge Fest in 2002.

The Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre is a program of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, named after the legendary Broadway composer whose career spanned six decades. A musical theatre immortal, Rodgers (1902-1979) wrote the scores for Babes in Arms, On Your Toes, The Boys from Syracuse, Pal Joey, Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and No Strings among several dozen other titles.

Bringers is one of three musicals honored this year by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The other recipients of the Richard Rodgers Award are Red, by composer Brian Lowdenmilk and lyricist-librettist Marcus Stevens, and Broadcast, by composer Scott Murphy and lyricist-librettist Nathan Christensen. The academy presents annual awards in painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music composition, but the Rodgers Award is the only competitive honor. Rodgers established the award himself in 1978 with a grant of $1 million to the academy. It's not to be confused with the award bestowed annually by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) as a memorial tribute to Rodgers.

Libman and Hudson are not the first Chicagoans to win the rich Rodgers Award. Librettist and lyricist Susan DiLallo won in 2003 for Once Upon a Time in New Jersey, written with non-Chicago composer Stephen Weiner. A 45-minute version of New Jersey will be featured March 17 at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre as part of the New Work Summit of the National Alliance of Musical Theatre (see related story p. 1).