Peter Mills is a critically-acclaimed composer/lyricist working in musical theater. He has taught musical theater writing at Princeton University and New York University.
Most recently, he wrote lyrics and music and co-wrote the book for the hit Off-Broadway musical, The Hello Girls (4 Outer Critcs Circle nominations, 3 Drama Desk nominations, Drama League nomination for Outstanding Production of a Musical, and an Off-Broadway Alliance nomination for Best New Musical.) Prior to that, he wrote lyrics for The Honeymooners (Paper Mill Playhouse, October 2017, dir. John Rando.) As a composer/lyricist, his other shows include Illyria, The Flood, The Underclassman, and Golden Boy Of The Blue Ridge.
He has received numerous recognitions from the theater industry in encouragement of his work, including: the 2010 Kleban Prize for lyrics, the 2007 Fred Ebb Award for emerging songwriters, the 2011 Cole Porter Award, 2006 Drama Desk Award nominations for his show The Pursuit Of Persephone (Best Music and Best Orchestrations), the 2003 Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the 2014 Donna Perret Rosen Award from Second Stage Theatre, and a 2002 grant from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation. With composer Deborah Abramson, he was chosen as a 2000-01 Dramatists Guild Fellow.
For his show, Death For Five Voices, Peter received a prestigious 2015 Fellowship at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. The show subsequently had its international premiere in 2015 at the Castello di Gesualdo and was performed the Teatro Carlo Gesualdo in Avellino, Italy.
He supplied lyrics for Iron Curtain, (book by Susan DiLallo, music by Stephen Weiner), which received the 2006 NYC Innovative Theatre Award for Best Musical. The show was workshopped at the prestigious 2008 Eugene O'Neill Musical Theatre Conference and showcased at the 2009 National Alliance for Musical Theater (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals. Iron Curtain had its regional premiere at the Village Theatre in Washington state in March 2011, and received an Off-Broadway production in New York City in November 2011.
His musical Golden Boy Of The Blue Ridge, a bluegrass adaptation of J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World set in 1930s Appalachia, was showcased at the 2011 NAMT Festival of New Musicals and had its regional premiere at the Cumberland County Playhouse in Tennessee, in August 2012. An original cast recording is available on Amazon.com.
Illyria, his musical adaptation of Twelfth Night, had its regional premiere at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Fall 2004, with a cast album released in April 2005, and an Off-Broadway run at the Hudson Guild Theater in 2008. The show is now licensed by Theatrical Rights Worldwide and has had numerous productions around the USA. His first full-length show, The Taxi Cabaret, was published by Samuel French in 2004.
Peter also teaches musical theater writing, most recently at NYU's Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program (First-Year Lyric Tutorial, Spring 2017) and at Princeton University's Lewis Center For The Arts (Atelier Program, Fall 2017). Peter holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theater Writing from New York University's Tisch School for the Arts and a degree in English/Dramatic Literature from Princeton University. He is a founding member of Prospect Theater Company.
