Amy Engelhardt

Amy Engelhardt

As composer/lyricist, Amy made her Off-Broadway debut with the sold-out run of BASTARD JONES at the cell theatre, a nominee for the Off-Broadway Alliance's Best New Musical and a Richard Rodgers Award finalist. Other theatrical work includes lyrics for TESLA, TRIPTYCH (book/music/lyrics) for the New York Transit Museum's Platform Series, lyrics/vocal arrangements for commissioned adaptations of Carl...
As composer/lyricist, Amy made her Off-Broadway debut with the sold-out run of BASTARD JONES at the cell theatre, a nominee for the Off-Broadway Alliance's Best New Musical and a Richard Rodgers Award finalist. Other theatrical work includes lyrics for TESLA, TRIPTYCH (book/music/lyrics) for the New York Transit Museum's Platform Series, lyrics/vocal arrangements for commissioned adaptations of Carl Sagan's CONTACT with Hungarian rocker Peter Sipos (2009 Puget Sound Theater Award – Best New Play), NICHOLAS NICKLEBY with electric violinist Eyvind Kang at Seattle’s CenterStage, music/lyrics for the Bobs/Flying Karamazov Brothers collaboration A COMEDY OF ERAS at ACT Seattle. Incidental music credits include MOTHER, MAY I at Baltimore’s Strand (dir. Rain Pryor). Amy was librettist/creative consultant for the PBS concert special Call Me Irresponsible (2011 Telly Award, Best Original Programming) featuring Ashley Brown (Broadway’s Mary Poppins). Her "one-Amy one-act" play with music, IMPACT premiered online in May 2021. A co-production of the cell theatre in NYC (where she is a Resident Artist), Michigan's Playhouse at White Lake (where it was live-captured) and Dimly Wit Productions, IMPACT explores the simplicity of human kindness as a counterbalance to tragic global events. IMPACT was developed at the National Winter Playwrights Residency in Colorado in February 2020.

Amy co-created TUNE IN TIME, New York City’s Musical Theater Game Show, which ran for 3 seasons at the York Theatre (“The BMI writers workshop on steroids...musical theater, cerebral fun and games pushed to 11… a joyous, hilarious romp”). A recipient of the Burman Award for Songwriting from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC), Amy was a resident composer at the Nautilus Composer/Librettist Studio in Los Angeles and is looking forward to a residency at the Bethany Arts Community in NY in fall 2021.


Amy spent a lot of time in rental cars from 1998-2012 as the sole female voice/writer/arranger for eclectic, Grammy®-nominated vocal "band without instruments," The Bobs. She recorded 4 CDs and toured extensively with the band, from Lincoln Center’s American Songbook to Northwest Folklife to the Pori (Finland) Jazz Festival. Her brainchild, Rhapsody In Bob - Gershwin's masterwork arranged for vocal orchestra (The Bobs) and blues-infused piano (Bob Malone of the John Fogerty Band) premiered at Wolf Trap.

And as Mother Superior of the Chattering Order of St. Beryl, she led a choir of singing, silly Satanic nuns through Hollywood, Austin, New York and London in the promo campaign for Amazon Prime’s GOOD OMENS. Amy also produced the nuns’ EP "Unholy Night" for Amazon Music. The marketing campaign won seven Clio Awards and a Gold Award from AdWeek.

A graduate of Syracuse University (Musical Theatre) and Berklee College of Music (Songwriting/Arranging), Amy is a proud member of SAG/AFTRA, The Dramatists Guild, MAESTRA, ASCAP, the "I Hate Cilantro" and "Giant Army of Tuxedo Cats" Facebook Groups and the only honorary female member of the Vienna Boys Choir. She splits her time between Los Angeles and New York City.

Plays

  • IMPACT
    I don't like most one-person shows. And I live in the smart/funny artistically. And I don't go for woowoo stuff. I mean HELLO, I'm from New Jersey. But in 2019, a series of "follow-signs" appeared about a major world event I was adjacent to 30 years ago. I followed these prompts to Scotland. And what started out as a bucket list trip turned into an exploration of compassion, grief,...
    I don't like most one-person shows. And I live in the smart/funny artistically. And I don't go for woowoo stuff. I mean HELLO, I'm from New Jersey. But in 2019, a series of "follow-signs" appeared about a major world event I was adjacent to 30 years ago. I followed these prompts to Scotland. And what started out as a bucket list trip turned into an exploration of compassion, grief, kindness, and community. With some Satanic nuns thrown in for good measure.
  • The Woods of Exeter
    Summer 1882, Exeter, Rhode Island, in a clearing between forest groves. A harvest moon hangs low in the east. A plague has swept through rural New England. People are desperate for answers. So desperate, they'll try anything.
  • Bastard Jones
    Book/lyrics by Marc Acito
    Music/lyrics by Amy Engelhardt

    A rock musical comedy adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic Brit Lit satire from 1749, THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING

    In a rollicking adventure of deception, misunderstanding and… bedhopping, charming but low-born Tom Jones makes the mistake of wooing Sophia Shepherd, daughter of the pompous Reverend...
    Book/lyrics by Marc Acito
    Music/lyrics by Amy Engelhardt

    A rock musical comedy adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic Brit Lit satire from 1749, THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING

    In a rollicking adventure of deception, misunderstanding and… bedhopping, charming but low-born Tom Jones makes the mistake of wooing Sophia Shepherd, daughter of the pompous Reverend Shepherd. Shepherd conspires to have Tom banished from the only home he’s known.

    Although determined to make good to earn Sophia's love, Tom's knack for trouble leads to conscription in the army, halfnaked havoc at a country inn and a stint as the boytoy of the duplicitous Lady Bellaston.

    Secrets, lies and still more bed-hopping eventually lead Tom to the brink of the scaffold before order and happiness prevail.