MINDI DICKSTEIN is an award-winning lyricist, librettist, and playwright. She is perhaps best known as the lyricist for the Broadway musical LITTLE WOMEN (licensed by MTI, Original Broadway Cast Album released by Sh-k-boom/Ghostlight Records), with music by Jason Howland and book by Allan Knee. LITTLE WOMEN debuted on Broadway in 2005 at the Virginia Theater and continues to be widely performed worldwide, most recently in Tokyo, London, Italy, and across the US and Canada. She is currently writing lyrics for BENNY & JOON, based on the MGM film, which music by Nolan Gasser and book by Kirsten Guenther. BENNY & JOON had its World Premiere at the Old Globe in San Diego in 2017 and East Coast Premiere at the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2019.
New works in development include book and lyrics for MAIDEN VOYAGE, with composer Carmel Dean, commissioned by New Works Provincetown, which debuted in concert at The Art House, Provincetown in October 2021, and lyrics for THE LITTLE PRINCE, with music by Bob and Bill and book by Michael Wolk, a multimedia musical that will premiere internationally in 2023. She is also contributing songs (with Dean) to WITNESSES, a new musical in development with multiple songwriters and a book by Robert Freedman, set to premiere at Escondido Center for the Arts in summer 2022. Recent projects include book and lyrics for TRIP, with composer Daniel Messé, commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, book for TOY STORY-THE MUSICAL, with songs by Groovelily, commissioned by Disney, and lyrics for SNOW IN AUGUST, with music by Peter Melnick and book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.
Other musicals include book and lyrics for BEASTS AND SAINTS (Boston Music Theater Project, MTW’s Fresh Voices, and ASCAP Workshop, where it was awarded the Bernice Cohen Award) and for NOTES ACROSS A SMALL POND (The Bridewell Theater, London). Plays include THE EXISTENTIAL GOURMET (Jane Chambers Award), GUADELOUPE (Westbeth Theater Center), STARVING TO DEATH IN MIDTOWN (Climate Change Theater Action), and THE BLESSING (Company One, Hartford). She also has written several musicals for Theatreworks USA, including THE MYSTERY OF KING TUT, an original musical which toured nationally from 2000 – 2008.
Her songs have been performed widely, most notably as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook (“Hear and Now: Contemporary Lyricists”) and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Her song “Astonishing” was spotlighted in the Dramatists Guild’s Great Writers Thank Their Lucky Stars concert at Gotham Hall (performed by Hannah Elless) and
was included in The Lilly Award’s Broadway Cabaret at the Cutting Room (performed by Solea Pfeiffer).
Mindi’s work has been developed at NAMT, Theatreworks Silicon Valley, Second Stage, The Women’s Project, Playwrights Horizons, Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat, Running Deer Musical Theater Lab, and The Goodspeed Johnny Mercer Colony. She has received a Larson Foundation Award, Massachusetts Artists and New York Foundation for the Arts Playwriting Fellowships, a Second Stage Constance Klinsky Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre, and a PEN International New Playwright Award (selected by Wendy Wasserstein). She was an Oscar Hammerstein Fellow at the NYU Graduate Musical Theater Writing program, where she received her MFA and now serves on the faculty. She is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild.