Frumi Cohen

Frumi Cohen is a playwright, composer and lyricist. Her writing career started by accident. She was a first year music teacher in Pennsylvania one Spring and she was supposed to put on a choral concert with her fifth and sixth grade students. She envisioned those boring concerts of her childhood where they would all dress alike, stand on shaky risers, and sing songs about trees and robins while the music teacher stood up front and waved her arms around. She would rather have had her teeth drilled than do that. A sympathetic colleague suggested she write a musical. Frumi had written many songs, but never a musical. She went home that night and began to write. It took about a week and she had a short musical for her students to present. They were a big hit. Twenty some years, two grants and several national playwriting prizes later, she is still writing musicals for her students. Many are published now and Frumi is delighted that they have been produced all over the U.S. and even overseas. Kids inspire Frumi and so does musical theater. Using a measure of both, she writes musicals that tell stories of unlikely, unsung heroes. She aims to write stories that are honest, fast-moving and believable, yet full of magic. And she doesn't write happy endings, just satisfying ones. She says, "I want to see young people and their families as both actors and audience for my work. I want to show them that musical theater is every bit as gripping and in many ways more alive than an action film."