Charles Strouse

Charles Strouse wrote the music for Bye Bye Birdie and Annie, two cheerful favorites that school and community theatres have staged for generations. His Broadway career ran from 1960 into the 1990s, and he died in 2025 at the age of 96.

Who Charles Strouse was

Charles Strouse was born in New York City in 1928 and studied composition at the Eastman School of Music. His longest partnership was with lyricist Lee Adams, with whom he wrote Bye Bye Birdie, Golden Boy, It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman, and Applause. For Annie he teamed with lyricist and director Martin Charnin, and later shows paired him with Alan Jay Lerner, Stephen Schwartz, and Richard Maltby Jr.

Strouse's songs are tuneful, optimistic, and easy to sing, rooted in Broadway tradition but often flavored with the pop sound of the day, as in Birdie's playful spoof of early rock and roll. He also wrote the film score for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and with Adams he wrote Those Were the Days, the theme song of the TV comedy All in the Family. He founded the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop in New York to help new writers.

Charles Strouse's Broadway shows

Bye Bye Birdie (1960), his first Broadway musical, starred Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera and won the Tony for Best Musical. All American (1962), with a book by Mel Brooks, did not last, but Golden Boy (1964) gave Sammy Davis Jr. a major Broadway role. It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman followed in 1966, and Applause (1970), a musical version of the film All About Eve starring Lauren Bacall, won Best Musical.

Annie (1977) became the biggest hit of his career. His later Broadway shows had shorter lives: A Broadway Musical (1978), Charlie and Algernon (1980), the sequel Bring Back Birdie (1981), Dance a Little Closer (1983) with Lerner, Rags (1986) with Schwartz, and Nick & Nora (1991) with Maltby.

Awards, legacy, and where to start

Strouse shared in three Tony Awards: Best Musical for Bye Bye Birdie and for Applause, and Best Original Score for Annie. Annie ran 2,377 performances, became a 1982 film, a 1999 TV movie, and a 2014 film, and gave the world Tomorrow and It's the Hard-Knock Life. Bye Bye Birdie's Put On a Happy Face is just as well known.

Newcomers should start with Annie, through the original cast album or the 1982 film. Then try Bye Bye Birdie, either the 1963 film with Dick Van Dyke and Ann-Margret or a local production, and finish with the Applause cast album to hear Strouse writing for a grown-up Broadway star.

Charles Strouse: frequently asked questions

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