Peter Mills Receives Fred Ebb Award

Peter Mills has been named the recipient of the third annual Fred Ebb award for aspiring musical theatre songwriters. The prize, given by the Fred Ebb Foundation in association with the Roundabout Theatre Company, includes a $50,000 monetary award. Five-time Tony Award nominee Scott Ellis presented Mills with the honor at a reception held November 26, 2007 at the American Airlines Theatre.

The Fred Ebb Award recognizes excellence in musical theatre songwriting, by a lyricist, composer or songwriting team that has not yet achieved significant commercial success. The award is meant to encourage and support aspiring songwriters to create new works for the musical theatre.

Peter Mills received 2005 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, and received a 2002 grant from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation.

Most recently, he wrote lyrics for the new musical comedy, IRON CURTAIN. Other recent projects include LONELY RHYMES (a comic song cycle), THE ALCHEMISTS, ILLYRIA (a musical adaptation of Twelfth Night, which had its regional premiere at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Fall 2004, with a cast album released in April 2005) and THE TAXI CABARET (published by Samuel French in Fall 2004).

With Cara Reichel, he wrote THE FLOOD, which was selected for The ASCAP Foundation Musical Theatre Workshop (2001). MARCO POLO, written with composer Deborah Abramson, was selected for The ASCAP Foundation Musical Theatre Workshop in 2000, and Peter and Deborah were chosen as 2000-01 Dramatists Guild Fellows.

Peter holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre 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 Theatre Company.