Board of Directors
Michael Wartofsky (Founder, President, AWL Facilitator) is a Professor at Berklee College of Music, where he established an undergraduate minor in Musical Theater Writing in 2015 and won a Distinguished Faculty Award in 2018. His album "All the Possibilities: Broadway Sings Wartofsky" on Yellow Sound Label features twelve breathtaking Broadway voices interpreting his original songs. Michael composed the musicals Car Talk: The Musical!!! and Cupcake, both produced in Boston in 2012, and wrote music/lyrics for The Man in My Head starring Darius de Haas at New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) 2006. In 2014, he was a finalist in the Davenport Musical Theater Songwriting Contest, and his song “Without Your Love” was released on Write This Way, a solo album by John Michael Dias. In 2013, Michael’s songs were featured in the revue Never Far From Home at Central Square Theater with script by Broadway playwright Lydia Diamond; and in The Concert hosted by Seth Rudetsky at Second Stage in NYC. The Broadway Boys have performed on numerous occasions "All the Possibilities," named one of the “top 25 songs” of 2012 by ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com. Adjunct faculty and alumnus, NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program; Founder, NOMTI (New Opera & Musical Theater Initiative); member, The Dramatist Guild. Winner, Frederick Loewe Foundation First Look Award 2009; Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant in Music Composition, 1997. www.michaelwartofsky.com
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David Reiffel (Treasurer, AWL Facilitator) has contributed some combination of music, lyrics, and book to 26 musical productions, including Cupcake (book/lyrics), The Rag Doll (music/lyrics, Blue Spruce Theatre, IRNE Nomination, Best New Play), Chairman of the Board (music/lyrics), The Lady from Maxim’s (music), Pleasant Dreams (book/music/lyrics) and Say Goodbye (book/music/lyrics), along with five children’s musicals commissioned by the Winsor School in Boston. Nine of his shows were written while touring the United States as a founding member and resident composer/songwriter for the nationally-acclaimed Cornerstone Theater Company. His latest full-length musical, Glory, is in development at the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative (NOMTI) Advanced Writers’ Lab. Several reams of cabaret songs, including the popular “Lili Gandolfi’s Driving Song,” are widely performed. He has written incidental music and designed sound on many Boston stages and nationally, including the 2017 West Coast premiere of Shakespeare in Love at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In 2018 he received the Elliott Norton Award for Outstanding Musical Direction of his original score for Shakespeare in Love and a flamenco-based reimagining of the score for Man of La Mancha. He is an Assistant Professor at the Berklee College of Music, where he teaches Musical Theater Writing. He is also an Artist in Residence at Apollinaire Theater Company in Chelsea, MA. www.davidreiffel.com
Nancy Rexford (Secretary, AWL Facilitator): Nancy Rexford has been active in NOMTI since 2001, where she cleverly made herself indispensable by taking responsibility for NOMTI’s financial records and reporting, a job no one else ever wants. Nancy became notorious within the group for insisting that everyone focus just as much on book as on music, having discovered that pretty music ain’t enough. When life permits, she practices what she preaches, and has written the libretto for an opera (Komachi, based on a 14th century Japanese Noh play) and also the book, music and lyrics for two musicals (George Sand and Princess and the Goblin), all three of these in collaboration with composer Charles Turner. She has also written a set of 27 art songs called Prayers from the Ark, based on poems by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden.
Marshall Strauss (director at large): Marshall Strauss has been active in the not-for-profit field for more than a quarter century. He is the CEO of the Workplace Giving Alliance, a collaboration involving several non-profit federations active in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). Mr. Strauss served as chair of the National CFC Committee for two years and has helped found several CFC federations. He was a member of the CFC's 50th Anniversary Commission, charged with revitalizing the Combined Federal Campaign. He has also served on a number of national and local not-for-profit organization boards.
During the early 1990s, Mr. Strauss helped establish and served as the initial CEO of two international organizations whose programs supported democracy activists overseas: The Democracy for China Fund and Freedom Channel. As executive director of the former, he organized and participated in the 1991 human rights delegation to China led by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. During his tenure at Freedom Channel, that organization produced and aired on nationwide Russian television numerous human rights documentaries.
During the 1980s, Mr. Strauss served as associate director of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Child Welfare League of America. Earlier, he served as special assistant to Massachusetts Governor Francis Sargent and special assistant to U.S. Senator John Durkin, among other positions. Strauss was a research associate at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy from 1994-96, and an adjunct member of the faculty of Emerson College in 1995. Here and overseas, he has been interviewed extensively on issues of human rights and philanthropy by, among others, the Associated Press, UPI, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, ABC News, Actuel (Paris), BBC, Russian National Television, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Leah Miles (director at large): Bio to come.
Cathyann Swindlehurst (director at large): Bio to come
Nancy Rexford (Secretary, AWL Facilitator): Nancy Rexford has been active in NOMTI since 2001, where she cleverly made herself indispensable by taking responsibility for NOMTI’s financial records and reporting, a job no one else ever wants. Nancy became notorious within the group for insisting that everyone focus just as much on book as on music, having discovered that pretty music ain’t enough. When life permits, she practices what she preaches, and has written the libretto for an opera (Komachi, based on a 14th century Japanese Noh play) and also the book, music and lyrics for two musicals (George Sand and Princess and the Goblin), all three of these in collaboration with composer Charles Turner. She has also written a set of 27 art songs called Prayers from the Ark, based on poems by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden.
Marshall Strauss (director at large): Marshall Strauss has been active in the not-for-profit field for more than a quarter century. He is the CEO of the Workplace Giving Alliance, a collaboration involving several non-profit federations active in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). Mr. Strauss served as chair of the National CFC Committee for two years and has helped found several CFC federations. He was a member of the CFC's 50th Anniversary Commission, charged with revitalizing the Combined Federal Campaign. He has also served on a number of national and local not-for-profit organization boards.
During the early 1990s, Mr. Strauss helped establish and served as the initial CEO of two international organizations whose programs supported democracy activists overseas: The Democracy for China Fund and Freedom Channel. As executive director of the former, he organized and participated in the 1991 human rights delegation to China led by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. During his tenure at Freedom Channel, that organization produced and aired on nationwide Russian television numerous human rights documentaries.
During the 1980s, Mr. Strauss served as associate director of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Child Welfare League of America. Earlier, he served as special assistant to Massachusetts Governor Francis Sargent and special assistant to U.S. Senator John Durkin, among other positions. Strauss was a research associate at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy from 1994-96, and an adjunct member of the faculty of Emerson College in 1995. Here and overseas, he has been interviewed extensively on issues of human rights and philanthropy by, among others, the Associated Press, UPI, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, ABC News, Actuel (Paris), BBC, Russian National Television, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Leah Miles (director at large): Bio to come.
Cathyann Swindlehurst (director at large): Bio to come