Composer, lyricist, and playwright Mark Friedman fell in love with musicals at an early age when he and his brothers built their own theatre in the basement of their home - complete with lighting grid and sound system – performing for family and friends in the neighborhood. With a Bachelors degree in Education and a Master of the Arts, Mark has been a both a successful teacher and educator as well as a musician, vocalist, actor and director. He was the co-founder of Cincinnati’s first free Shakespeare Festival in the Park and helped create Peanut Butter Theatre for Children which featured original musicals and a brown bag lunch. Mark produced a touring theatre group for inner-city schools called The Good News Company and toured the country as an actor and musician with the Fountain Square Fools. A composer and studio producer, Mark has many songs and recordings published worldwide in books and catalogs - he has written music, scripted and hosted events for national conventions - and is a sought after speaker at music and education seminars around the country. In 2005, Mark was distinguished as National Music Educator of the Year. For many years, Mark has been successfully writing and composing with collaborator Janet Yates Vogt - and in addition to their musical How I Became a Pirate, they have produced several other works for both adults and young audiences which are playing across the country. Their Anne of Green Gables was produced twice Off-Broadway at the York Theatre, and had successful runs at the Barter Theatre in VA, the Victoria Theatre in OH, and the Village Theatre in WA, among many others. Harriet and Sam, a powerful story capturing the events of Civil War America as seen through the eyes of Harriet Beecher Stowe and hr neighbor Mark Twain, was commissioned by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Festival in 2003. Ebenezer, a musical version of “A Christmas Carol,” has been delighting audiences since 2005. Also in 2005, a humorous, and satirical look at married relationships - War Games: Marriage On The Front Lines premiered at the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. How I Became a Pirate was commissioned in 2009 by First Stage Theatre in Milwaukee and has since played to delighted audiences from Cape Cod to Las Vegas. Sleepy Hollow: A Musical Tale, premiered in 2010 at the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre, and a new work in development entitled Tenderly, based on the life and career of Rosemary Clooney, was work-shopped in the summer of 2010 at the Human Race Theatre in Dayton, OH, and is in further development. Mark is a member of the Dramatist Guild and is represented by Bill Craver, Paradigm Agency, New York.