Jill Santoriello
Born: 1965
[Photo credit: Playbill.com]
BIOGRAPHY WORKS SOURCES
Jill Santoriello is a self-taught musician, composer, lyricist, and author born and raised in Summit, New Jersey. After attending her first Broadway show, “Shenandoah,” in elementary school, followed by “The King and I,” she fell in love with musical theater. She went on to major in Journalism at Ohio University where she graduated with honors. She is only the second woman, ever, to write the text, music, and lyrics for a Broadway musical.
Santoriello’s musical A Tale of Two Cities premiered on Broadway in September 2008 and received the 2009 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding New Musical. The show closed on Broadway after only two months but traveled to Sarasota, Florida for its world premiere production. There, it was nominated for twelve Sarasota Theater awards and won ten, including Outstanding New Musical, in 2009. Following this production, Santoriello revised the show for concert stage and for a TV version, filmed in England.
Her most recent musical, It Happened in Key West, co-written with Jason Huza, had its world premiere in London in 2018 at the Charing Cross Theatre.
Upcoming projects for Santoriello include “Polyanna” and “Outlander,” based on the literary series by Diana Gabaldon.