Stephen Alexander
is a freelance Director, Music Director, Composer/Lyricist and Piano Conductor who lives in Portland, OR. He is a four-time Drammy Award winner (Portland's "Tony's") for Direction, Music Direction and Piano Performance, as well as other regional awards. He was recently given the Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship, to partially fund the creation of the opera Lost Bird. He is also working on a comedy-horror musical, It Came from the Midnight Clear, with a book by David Mills-Low of Missoula, MT. Stephen's works have varied from directing Sophocles to music directing Sondheim. He composed and wrote lyrics for the full scores: Go to Hell (The Really Big Dance Company, 1997), a trip through Hades; and The Most Beautiful Bird in the World (Northwest Children's Theatre, 2000), a Brer Rabbit tale. He provided additional songs and lyrics for Miss Lulu (Vanity Productions) after its premieres in 1998 and 1999. Other original music was created for The Three Musketeers, The Magic Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, Dangerous Stages (Mansfield Park by Jane Austin), and dance music for almost everything he conducts. He also catalogues a slew of original cabaret, vaudeville and parody songs.

Stephen has been called "the bastard love child of Cole Porter and Tom Lehrer."

His award winning direction includes children's and adult musical theatre, classics and contemporary drama. Painted Maniac, his production company, has presented Charles Ludlum's Camille and Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio. He has also worked steadily at the Oregon Children's Theatre, Artists' Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Lakewood Theatre, Stark Raving, defunct, Liminal Productions, Theatre Vertigo, Triangle Productions, the Columbia Theatre in Longview, WA and the Opera House Theatre in Philipsburg, MT.

To make ends meet, he works in theatre management. He was executive director at the Portland Women's Theatre, and business manager of Stark Raving Theatre. He was recently the head of audience services at Artists' Repertory Theatre.

Awards

Best Director, 2001 Drammy Award (Portland Circle of Dramatic Critics & Journalists)
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Best Director, 2002 Drammy Award
The Magic Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

Best Music Director, 2003 Drammy Award
The Seven Deadly Sins

Best Music Director, 2003 Oregon Theatre Alliance Society Award
Anything Goes!

Best Band (Piano Performance), 2004 Drammy Award
The Spitfire Grill

2006 Recipient of the Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship, by the Civic Theatre Guild of Portland, to assist the creation of the opera Lost Bird