"40 is the New 15" IS NOW APPEARING AT THE NOHO ARTS CENTER IN LOS ANGELES.  WWW.ANMT.ORG FOR TICKETS!

Saturday matinee 7/17, 3pm is a special Benefit performance for the GMCLA; 20% of the ticket sales go to this great organization.  
Join the Facebook event for the show at:

 

 

Larry Todd Johnson

Writer - Director - Producer - Now in Chicago!

Please check out my '40 is the New 15' blog, updated daily, while we prepare for our big opening at the NoHo Arts Center.  Click on the BLOG link above.

In August 2009, I left a 13-year position as a line producer at Walt Disney Television in Los Angeles to relocate to Chicago. What causes a lifelong So Cal resident to uproot himself and start over in the Midwest? Well, at the risk of ‘over-sharing’ on my home page... let’s just say that I came to Chicago because it is exactly the right city to start a new chapter in my life. The warm and genuine people, the feeling of home and community, and the rich cultural heritage that Chicago offers were all immediately apparent to me. I already love living here. Of course, I am freezing my ‘blank’ off. But everything is a give-and-take, right?

Here is what I left behind in sunny SoCal:

As a Line Producer for Disney, I managed the development, pre-production, and post-production for numerous animated series and video release projects, including My Friends Tigger and Pooh, Yin Yang Yo!, American Dragon, House of Mouse and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. I created and maintained detailed budget plans and schedules, interfaced between the subcontractors and Disney to ensure proper budgeting and scheduling guidelines were maintained, traveled internationally to oversee multiple subcontractor studios, and managed in-house artistic and administrative staffs of up to 60 persons. In addition to these duties, I also worked as a freelance writer on numerous animated series, including Yin Yang Yo!, The Care Bears (2009), and Angela Anaconda.

On top of all of this, I also spent a great deal of time over the last 20 years honing my skills as a bookwriter/lyricist for musical theatre. My musical theatre career began in college, with a B.A. in Theatre Arts from UCLA and a Master’s in Playwriting from Cal State Fullerton. My master’s thesis, a musical drama called All That He Was, won the Kennedy Center National Student Playwrighting Award and the KC/ACTF Musical Theater Award. My historical-fiction musical, The Last Princess, was featured in the Disney/ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles. More recently, I am the bookwriter/lyricist on a project titled Now and Then a Hero, which was developed as a collaboration between the Colony Theatre in Burbank, CA, and the Academy for New Musical Theatre in North Hollywood, CA, and is currently in development. I am also the bookwriter/lyricist on 40 is the New 15, which had a six-week workshop production opening July 22nd 2009 at the Secret Rose Theatre in North Hollywood, CA. It was a critical and commercial success, nominated for a 2010 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Los Angeles Theatre, and was chosen (from over 200 applicants) to be featured at the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop in Burbank on February 2 and 18, 2010.  A new 'full-scale' production will premiere on July 16 at the NoHo Arts Center in North Hollywood, CA.

In February 2010, I attended a very exciting and experimental new student production of All That He Was at the Tisch School of the Arts in NYC. 

On the horizon, I'm writing lyrics for a new musical adaptation of Hedda Gabler called Beautiful, with book by Adrian Bewley and music by Cindy O'Connor.  We had our first reading on June 9 at the Secret Rose Theatre in North Hollywood, and it was a big success.  Still much work ahead for us, but that's the exciting part... right?

-Larry Todd Johnson