Composer - Lyricist - Librettist
Tom Megan is a composer, lyricist, librettist with a rich melodic sense, a keen wit, and a natural gift for musical storytelling. His works for the musical stage include A Vision, The Kid Who Would Be Pope, Sea Change, and A Town Called Civility. He’s collaborated on a dozen musicals, including several for young performers. His pieces are noted for their humor and heart.
A recipient of the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award, the Yip Harburg Award and the American Harmony Prize, Tom’s work has been seen at Playwrights Horizons, Ars Nova, the O’Neill National Music Theater Conference, NYMF, Boston Music Theater Projects, and Sacred Fools in West Hollywood.
Tom grew up in a musical family, playing piano from a young age and later performing as a singer-songwriter in New England coffeehouses. His studies took him to Ireland as a young man, where he landed in the midst of the emerging Celtic Music Revival. Steeped in the music of Planxty, The Chieftains, The Bothy Band, and the literary tradition of Yeats, Synge and Beckett, his immersion in the culture and the land had a profound influence on all his later work. A love of language, storytelling, and world music grew from Irish roots.
Inspired by the work of Stephen Sondheim, Tom began writing and composing for the musical stage. He composed the score to five musicals over three years and began to work extensively in the Boston theater scene. After receiving a full scholarship to the NYU Graduate Musical Theater Program, Tom moved to New York where he studied with Arthur Laurents, Peter Stone, Stephen Schwartz, and Sheldon Harnick. Richard Maltby Jr. was an early mentor.
Along with his writing and composing, Tom is an active musician performing his original solo work and collaborating with various ensembles. He’s been a member of the Billy Walsh Band- also known as Widdershins- for 25 years. He writes and performs extensively with his wife, Storyteller Diane Edgecomb, and Celtic harper Margot Chamberlain.
The love of music, so central to Tom’s life, extends to his love of teaching. He teaches privately in his Boston studio and to students across the country via Zoom, offering lessons on piano, guitar and songwriting.
Tom at his grandfather’s 1905 grand piano
“His work ranks among the very top. He is a true dramatic composer of remarkable range and depth. His music has power, beauty, force. His work always has humor, wit, surprise, as well as mystery.”
– Deena Rosenberg, Founding Chair Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, NYU
“Tom stands out as a most exciting and innovative composer/lyricist well versed in both contemporary pop styles and more experimental song forms. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, he has his own voice.”
– Martin Charnin, Broadway Director, Producer, Lyricist: Annie, I Remember Mama
“I am very impressed with the emotional power and clarity of Mr. Megan’s writing; his deep feeling for characters, his highly effective and evocative use of imagery, and his overall winning musicality.”
– Henry Krieger, Broadway Composer: Dreamgirls, The Tap Dance Kid
