The Hermitage Artist Retreat today announced a new program, “Songwriting for Character” on the Hermitage Beach, featuring Grammy Award-nominated artist, musical theater composer, and returning Hermitage Fellow Rona Siddiqui. On Thursday, May 28th at 6:30pm, Siddiqui returns to the Hermitage Beach to offer insight into her approach to songwriting in this sunset program.
Having won some of musical theater’s most prestigious awards as a songwriter, including the Kleban Prize for lyric writing and a Jonathan Larson grant, Siddiqui has also collaborated on notable Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals as a music director and orchestrator – including the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop, written by Hermitage Fellow Michael R. Jackson. Siddiqui has previously shared her work at a Hermitage Beach program in a 2020, at the 2024 Hermitage Artful Lobster, and as Music Director for the Hermitage’s 20th Anniversary Celebration at the Van Wezel, which featured Hermitage Artistic Director Andy Sandberg and multiple Tony Award-nominated Broadway talents. For her upcoming program on May 28th, Siddiqui will offer a look into her songwriting techniques and share some of her original work as the sun sets into the Gulf on Manasota Key.
Rona Siddiqui is a composer/lyricist based in NYC. She is a recipient of the prestigious Kleban Prize, Jonathan Larson Grant, Mark O’Donnell Prize, and Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award. Her show THE BROWN MUSICAL: A New Brown Musical, an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America, has had a concert at 54 Below and development at Playwrights Horizons. Other musicals include Father Time, co-created by Bryce Pinkham, Zack Fine, and Hermitage Fellow Kirya Traber, Expect Victory, Rattle the Cage, and Hip-Hop Cinderella. She is the recipient of the ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award, the ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award, and the ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship. She has performed on NPR’s “Tiny Desk,” The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and Late Night with Seth Meyers. Her Broadway music direction credits include Pulitzer Prize, Tony, and Obie Award-winning and Grammy Award-nominated musical, A Strange Loop, written by Hermitage Fellow Michael R. Jackson. Her Off Broadway works include Bella: An American Tall Tale and Who’s Your Baghdaddy, with orchestration credits for Monsoon Wedding, An Untitled New Play by Justin Timberlake, and numerous albums with Broadway Records and Broadway Backwards. Siddiqui is on the faculty at BerkleeNYC, New York University, and Marymount Manhattan College. She earned her Masters from New York University’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program.
Hermitage programs are free and open to the public (with a $5/person registration fee), offering Gulf Coast audiences a rare chance to engage and interact with some of the world’s leading talent. Running time for most Hermitage programs is 60-70 minutes with no intermission. Due to capacity limitations, registration is required at HermitageArtistRetreat.org.