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The Johnny Mercer Foundation Young Songwriters Intensive

Meet the Faculty

Carmel Dean

Carmel is a Grammy-nominated musical theatre multi-hyphenate hailing from Perth, Australia and currently based in New York. As a musical director and arranger, you may have seen her work in The Notebook, Funny Girl, and American Idiot on Broadway, or in Clueless on London’s West End. As a composer, you may have enjoyed her work in Maiden Voyage (Southwark Playhouse, London), Renascence (Off-Broadway), and Well-Behaved Women (New York’s Town Hall, Joe’s Pub, and Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre). Carmel holds an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from New York University, and in addition to her Grammy nomination, she is a Fulbright Scholar and has won the Sydney Theatre Award, the Off-Broadway Alliance Award, and the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for Composition.

Adam Gwon

Adam is a composer/lyricist whose musicals have been produced on six continents in many languages. He is a recipient of the Kleban, Ebb, Loewe, and Richard Rodgers Awards, as well as the Weston Playhouse New Musical Award and the ASCAP Harold Adamson Award. His show Ordinary Days has enjoyed multiple productions in many countries, including Off-Broadway and Off-West End appearances, and his show Scotland, PA (also produced Off-Broadway) received both an NYT Critic’s Pick and a Roundabout Theatre Drama Desk Award nomination.

Kaitlin Hopkins
Artistic Director

Kaitlin is an award-winning actress, director, producer, and educator. She has performed on and off Broadway, on national/international tours, and in film and television for more than 30 years. As an educator, she created the musical theatre program at Texas State University and was recognized by the Broadway Dreams Foundation as an innovative voice in education and as one of the Top 6 women educators in the performing arts. Hopkins is also the proud creator/CEO of Fontus Dry Mouth Lozenges. Hopkins consults for arts organizations worldwide, specializing in institutional wellness.

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