Sami Horneff & Amanda D'Archangelis

SAMI: When I was four years old, I saw my first Broadway show, Beauty and the Beast. By the time the curtain went down, I told my parents that I would spend the rest of my life in the theatre. The wonder and the magic I experienced that day has only grown stronger, and it's something I've carried with me through my adult years. Because I grew up in New York City (on 48th and 3rd!), I was incredibly fortunate to have access to the theatre just across town. By the time I was six, I attended my first musical theatre summer camp, and the rest was pretty much history. I've been making a life in the theatre ever since.

AMANDA: The first time I remember being struck by theater was in kindergarten, when the 5th graders put on a prolific performance of Bye Bye Birdie in the cafetorium. I sincerely hope the girl that sang the lines "Bye Bye Birdie" with the most pristine forward placement is working today. I didn't do my first show until I was 11. I was a grande homme in Once On This Island. I was in the ensemble. I loved it. Was an emsemble chica from then on.

SAMI: Throughout my childhood, I thought I wanted to be a musical theatre performer. In reality, I didn't know it was possible to be a lyricist or bookwriter for the theatre. I started writing pop songs on the guitar in my pre-teen years, but because I didn't play piano, writing theatre didn't seem like a possible path for me. I went to Brown University for college and majored in Theatre Arts, which allowed me to study theatre in all its forms - not just performance. In my senior year, I took my first real musical theatre writing course, which was a huge lightbulb moment for me. After graduating, I did some performing, but I mainly focused on writing instead. I started writing a web series with some friends called The Under 5ers, for which I wrote a few songs. My work on that web series got me nominated for my first songwriting award - an Indie Series Award for Best Original Song. I then got the opportunity to write both music and lyrics for a pop/rock/country musical called Rock and a Hard Place. I applied to the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, the premiere training ground for musical theatre songwriters in New York, with those songs, and I was admitted as a lyricist. That was really what changed my trajectory and cemented my belief that writing for the theatre was what I needed to do. Amanda and I met there and started working together when we were paired for the final assignment of the first year, which became our first full length show and our Off-Broadway debut as a team! Since then, we've written six full length shows and dozens of standalone songs. I am now and Advanced Lyricist and Bookwriter in the BMI Workshop, and I continue to love learning from my talented colleagues and the mentors in the program.

As far as my inspirations, many of my favorite shows from childhood are still my favorites now. I've definitely stayed true to my four year old self, and I'm still obsessed with all things Disney (Alan Menken is my favorite composer of all time, and Howard Ashman is my hero). Little Shop of Horrors, naturally, followed suit. Ashman and Menken's work is as emotionally-driven as it is smart. Their characters are funny, deep, complex, and so relatively human despite living in fairy-tale universes. Menken's hummable melodies are also something Amanda and I strive to emulate in our own songwriting.

Some of my other favorite shows both growing up and now are Into the Woods, Les Miserables, Hamilton, and Spring Awakening, the latter of which opened during my junior year of high school and is still my #1 favorite of all time. I am also deeply inspired by other female lyricists who have paved the way, including Lynn Ahrens, Amanda Green, Nell Benjamin, and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, many of whom were also part of the BMI Workshop! Their words are well-crafted, evocative, and whitty - all while staying truthful to character and constantly moving the plot forward. To me, that is the goal of any good musical theatre song.

AMANDA: Writing was born out of my deep frustrations, always. It was an outlet to express my emotions and feelings about the world. I always noodled in my piano lessons, and it all came very naturally. I really liked to write pop songs, and write instrumental music, and I thought about going to school for composition, but my love for singing and creating a story with others temporarily trumped the desire to score films, so I auditioned for Musical Theatre programs and got into the Boston Conservatory. As a mixed raced chubby girl 15 years ago, teachers didn't really know what to do with me. They encouraged me to keep forging my path, and I soon came to the conclusion that I would write my own work. I saw what Lin Manuel did, and as a big Stephen Schwartz fan, I figured I could do it to. The ideas were always in my head.

SAMI: As a rare female songwriting duo, Amanda and I tend to focus on writing about strong women (or badass women in history, more colloquially). The six projects we’ve developed together - Single Rider, The Radium Girls, Coming Attraction, Bandit Queen, The Break, and Pandora in Blue Jeans - all live up to this objective. We also want to write shows audiences see themselves in, regardless of their gender identity, ethnicity, shape, size, or sexual orientation. Our musical style as a team tends to be contemporary and pop-focused, though we have also written in a variety of genres to suit the piece at hand. We always take our cues from the time period and setting, as well as the internal lives of the characters we’re writing for. The Radium Girls is set in the 1920s, so we play with era-appropriate musical styles including Jazz and Swing, while much of Bandit Queen's music is geared towards Bluegrass, Folk, Country, and Ragtime, encapsulating the sound of the West in the 1890s. Regardless of the genre, memorable melodic lines are always at the forefront of our songs together - we want audience members leaving the theatre humming!

AMANDA: Tuneful, contemporary, but hopefully harkening to the old days of writing tunes that people want to sing forever. I write for strong women and all of the stories I'm drawn to feature them!

SAMI: Writing music and making theatre, to me, is all about collaboration. I absolutely love watching a song or a show come to life when talented people work together. The thrill of having that initial idea spark in the room with your collaborator - I think there's really some magic in that. Crafting that idea, putting it on paper as new ideas miraculously appear before your eyes, then listening to the melody or the words over and over until you've perfected the song moment - that all requires intense collaboration between the composer and lyricist (and most times, the bookwriter as well!). It's all about listening to one another and helping each other create the best possible version of the thing you're trying to make. The trust I have for Amanda to hold space for my ideas and help them grow is what makes us such a great team.

But in theatre, collaboration extends beyond just the songwriters. Adding in an orchestrator to help bring your song to life in a way you never thought possible, and then hearing talented musicians play it for the first time while an incredible performer sings your words: there's no better feeling. It takes so many people working together and trusting in one another to make a song, and there's nothing I love more than looking around the room and soaking in that collective sense of accomplishment and joy. The most special thing about theatre, in my opinion, is that we all share in it together, from the creators to the performers to the audience. There's really nothing like it.

AMANDA: That I get to share a part of myself with others. That people connect to the ideas and melodies that I write. That I get to spread happiness and good vibes honestly.