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 latest show All the World’s a Stage was named Best Musical by the Off-Broadway Alliance Awards, nominated for multiple Drama Desk Awards, and released a cast album with Joy Machine Records. His show Ordinary Days has enjoyed more than 500 productions around the world, including Off-Broadway and Off-West End appearances, and his show Scotland, PA (also produced Off-Broadway) received both a NYT Critic’s Pick and multiple Drama Desk Award nominations.
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 co-founded Abate Hopkins Creative Consultants providing professional development and consulting services to corporations, arts-based organizations, industry professionals, educators and educational institutions worldwide. www.KaitlinHopkins.net
