ALPHONSO HORNE has performed with some of the leading musicians in jazz including Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center (2013), Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett (2014), the house band of the Late Show with Jon Batiste. BM – Florida State University. MM – Jazz – The Juilliard School.
Tony Award winning Broadway production After Midnight (2013)
member of the orchestra for Tony nominated Shuffle Along (2016)
Music Director for Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic (2015), and Assistant Director for The Last Time Musical (2015).
Currently Horne is involved with many projects including, the annual Savannah Swing Central and Music Festival, where he commissioned an arrangement for this 2018 season, playing with Sammy Miller and the Congregation, who just finished a residency at Ars Nova (2017). As a leader, bandleader of an early jazz band: Gotham Kings. Gotham Kings performs regularly at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Ginny’s Supper Club in Harlem, New York. He is currently producing his original show “Mother Kofi: The Tale of an African Princess”.
PETE MILLS is a critically-acclaimed composer/lyricist working in musical theater. He has taught musical theater writing at Princeton University and New York University.
Most recently, he wrote lyrics and music and co-wrote the book for The Hello Girls (4 Outer Critics Circle nominations, 3 Drama Desk nominations, Drama League nomination for Outstanding Production of a Musical, and an Off-Broadway Alliance nomination for Best New Musical.) Prior to that, he wrote lyrics for The Honeymooners (Paper Mill Playhouse, October 2017). His other shows include Illyria, The Flood, The Underclassman, and Golden Boy Of The Blue Ridge.
Recognition: 2014 Donna Perret Rosen Award, 2011 Cole Porter Award, 2010 Kleban Prize, 2007 Fred Ebb Award for emerging songwriters, 2006 Drama Desk Award nominations for his show The Pursuit Of Persephone, 2003 Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and 2002 grant from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation. With composer Deborah Abramson, he was chosen as a 2000-01 Dramatists Guild Fellow.
Peter also teaches musical theater writing, most recently at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program (First-Year Lyric Tutorial, Spring 2017) and at Princeton University’s Lewis Center For The Arts (Atelier Program, Fall 2017). Peter holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theater 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 Theater Company.
JESSE L. KEARNEY, JR. was a graduate of Dartmouth College (’97), where he was a senior fellow and member of Casque & Gauntlet. He also earned a J.D. from New York Law School and an M.F.A. in musical theater writing from New York University.
Authored notable works including Making Micheaux, The Oscar Micheaux Project, The Little Playhouse, The Lion in Love, and The Blind Man.
Served as president of the Prospect Theater Company and vice president of Black Broadway Men United. Keaney, Jr. co-founded and served as general counsel for The STAGE Network, a streaming platform for theatrical content, and worked as a content acquisition and development manager at Audible Inc.
Honors: Dramatists Guild’s Jonathan Larson Musical Theater Fellowship and the Lazarus Family Musical Theater Award. Kearney Jr. died on March 6, 2025 due to complications from a sudden brain bleed.
CARA REICHEL is the Producing Artistic Director of Prospect Theater Company, which she co-founded in 1998, and is a leader in the field of new musical theater development. With Pete Mills, they have co-created over a dozen original musicals, including The Hello Girls (multiple 2019 Drama Desk & Outer Critics’ Circle Award nominations). Works-in- process include the musicals The Troupe, Soldier’s Heart and The Mystery of the Somerton Man, and a new comedy, The Resurrectionist.
Residencies: Goodspeed Musicals’ Johnny Mercer Writers Grove, Weston Playhouse Artists’ Retreat, Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat, Fellow at the Women’s International Study Center (Santa Fe, NM), Bogliasco Fellowship for work in Italy. Recognition: 2002 “Lucille Lortel Award” for Emerging Women Artists from the League of Professional Theatre Women, 2004 & 2007 “New Directors / New Works” Grants from the Drama League. As a theater educator, Cara has taught at Princeton University’s Global Seminar Program in Italy, Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts Atelier Program, Pace University, Molloy College, and has taught Master Classes for American Theater Wing.
A.B. Princeton University. M.F.A. program Brooklyn College Center. Affiliations: Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the League of Professional Theatre Women, Lincoln Center Directors Lab alum, and a Trustee of the Princeton Triangle Cluba
