Jason Robert Brown

Jason Robert Brown is the composer and lyricist of Parade, The Last Five Years, and The Bridges of Madison County. His songs are audition and cabaret favorites, prized by singers for their emotion and their difficulty.

Who is Jason Robert Brown?

Jason Robert Brown was born on June 20, 1970, in Ossining, New York, and studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. He usually writes both music and lyrics, and he often orchestrates his own scores.

His music blends pop, rock, gospel, and folk with Broadway storytelling, and his piano writing is rhythmic and demanding. His collaborators include director Daisy Prince, who staged Songs for a New World and The Last Five Years, playwright Alfred Uhry and director Harold Prince on Parade, Marsha Norman on The Bridges of Madison County, and Billy Crystal on Mr. Saturday Night, for which Amanda Green wrote the lyrics.

Jason Robert Brown's shows in order

His first New York show was Songs for a New World, a song cycle that played Off-Broadway in 1995. Parade followed on Broadway at Lincoln Center in 1998. The Last Five Years premiered near Chicago in 2001 and opened Off-Broadway in 2002, then finally reached Broadway in 2025.

His other Broadway musicals are 13 (2008), performed by an all-teenage cast and band, The Bridges of Madison County (2014), Honeymoon in Vegas (2015), and Mr. Saturday Night (2022). More recent work includes The Connector, which played Off-Broadway in 2024, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre in 2024.

Legacy, awards, and where to start

Brown has won three Tony Awards: Best Original Score for Parade in 1999, and both Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations for The Bridges of Madison County in 2014. Parade has grown in reputation since its short first run, and its 2023 revival won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. The Last Five Years became a 2014 film starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.

Start with The Last Five Years, a two-person show you can follow from the cast album alone. Songs for a New World is a good next step, and Parade is the one to hear when you are ready for a serious historical drama.

Jason Robert Brown: frequently asked questions

All Broadway composers