Stuart Ross is a director, playwright, and lyricist. The first show Ross directed, choreographed, and wrote with Mark Hampton was EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY: A TRIBUTE TO THE BOSWELL SISTERS (aka HEEBEE JEEBEES) (1981) originally done at Chelsea Theatre Centre Cabaret, The Berkshire Theatre Festival and subsequently at Westside Arts. He directed DEAR LOVE OF COMRADES (1981), NOT SO NEW FACES OF 1981,2,3,4, LUNCH GIRLS (1984), CREEPS (1985), SECRETS OF THE LAVA LAMP (1985), NASTY LITTLE SECRETS (1988), BREAKING UP (1990), CATCH ME IF I FALL (1991), IT’S A BIRD…IT’S A PLANE…IT’S SUPERMAN (1992, 2007), LEAP OF FAITH (1999), MINNIE’S BOYS (2008), ENTER LAUGHING (2009, 2019), SORORITY QUEEN IN A MOBILE HOME (2009), STANDING ON CEREMONY: THE GAY MARRIAGE PLAYS (2011), SILK STOCKINGS (2013), IT HAS TO BE YOU (2014, 2016), SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING (2018). Ross conceived, wrote the book for, directed and choreographed FOREVER PLAID (1990) and PLAID TIDINGS (2001, 2015). He co-wrote the book for the Tony nominated Broadway musical STARMITES (1989). He wrote the book and Co-lyrics for RADIANT BABY (2003) performed at The Public Theater. His musical STARMITES (Co-book writer) was nominated for six Tony Awards. Ross was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical in 2009 for ENTER LAUGHING, and a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, RADIANT BABY in 2003. He is currently developing a stage adaptation of The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, Jack Viertel’s The Secret Life of the American Musical and prepping a revision of RADIANT BABY.

By his own admission, Stuart Ross said he was too energetic to sit still long enough to ‘write a play.’ Hearing show records as a child (without the play scripts) he created his own ‘in-between’ scenarios. When, at the age of six, he saw Ethel Merman do Gypsy on Broadway he was blown away and decided theater was the life for him. He wrote musical Revues for his classmates in the high school cafeteria and was allowed, as a Freshman in college, to sit in on a ‘Juniors’ directing class. Soon he was writing musical reviews in college as well. His Junior year in college was spent in Manchester, England, where he had the chance to see English theater in London. In the summers Ross worked at the Delacorte Theater in the Props Department, then as a reader in the literary department. Next he went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music where he met and worked with Robert Kalfin and Michael David of The Chelsea Theatre Company, then Tony and Abigail McGrath’s Off Center Theater where he performed street theater, then Playwrights Horizons with  Robert Moss, becoming one of the ‘42^nd Street Gang,’ pivotal in the development of Theatre Row. At Playwrights Horizons he began a vigorous directing career and started creating his own commercial projects, finding the flexible ‘cabaret format’ to his liking. He was also an Assistant to the Director for Broadway shows like Goodtime Charlie (Peter Hunt), and Nikos Psacharopoulus in Williamstown, Arvin Brown and Richard Maltby, Jr. to name a few. For eleven seasons he was a Director, dramaturg and/or author at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center the National Music Theatre Conference, and was a panelist for 9 years at the ASCAP/Disney Workshop.