Peter Ekstrom

Peter Ekstrom graduated from Antioch College in 1973 and in 1978 traveled down the Mississippi River on a raft with Otrabanda Theatre Company, stopping in two dozen towns from St. Louis to New Orleans to perform a vaudeville show in a circus tent. His professional career began when Jon Jory of Actors Theatre of Louisville hired him to write music and lyrics to a satirical revue in the Humana Festival of New American Plays. His Matrimonium and Doctors and Diseases (in which he also performed) followed in the next two Festivals. In 1981, he wrote a musical adaption of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi which ran at Actors Theatre of Louisville every Christmastime for 17 consecutive years as well as many regional and amateur theatres across the country. Doctors and Diseases was revived by Barter Theatre in Virginia in 1997 and subsequently moved to off-Broadway.

Mr. Ekstrom’s musical comedy with Steve Hayes, Kiss Me Quick Before the Lava Reaches the Village, has been produced at St. Peter’s at Citicorp (NYC), Northshore Theatre (Cape Ann, MA), and in 2000 at the Village Theatre (Issaquah, WA). His musical romance with Steve Hayes and David Deboy, Girl of My Dreams, has had productions by Musical Theatre Works (NYC), Barter Theatre (VA) and the Village Theatre (WA). From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Ekstrom wrote and performed weekly with Michael Quinn in the political satire revue The Front Page Follies at the Cornelia Street Café (NYC). For Jon Jory Peter, he has written over a dozen incidental scores for plays from Shakespeare’s to Charles Ludlum’s The Mystery of Irma Vep.

He wrote the incidental score for Jon’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice when it premiered in 2005 at Arizona Theatre Company in Tucson. Peter and Jon turned this version into a musical that went on to be produced by the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre for two years in repertory. From 2013 to 2022 (ten years!), Mr. Ekstrom’s An O. Henry Christmas was produced at The Moscow State Theatre (Pushkin, Russia) in repertory. The production garnered its director, Alexey Frandetti, a Golden Mask Award, Russia’s equivalent of a Tony Award. Peter is a member of ASCAP and lives in Chinatown, NYC.