Ed Bell is a songwriter, author and music educator.
In his theatre work, Ed is best known for co-writing the award-winning musical My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend with Christian Duhamel, starring Broadway actress Charissa Bertels. The show premiered at The Merrimack Repertory Theatre in 2017, and has since been performed at Arizona Theatre Company and The Human Race Theatre Company.
“Nothing short of phenomenal… This is a masterclass in how to put on a show worth seeing.” Nashua Telegraph
My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend won the 2018 Kleban Award and has received major press features from BroadwayWorld, Fox 10 News Phoenix and KGUN 9 News Tucson.
“A triumphant one-woman musical… Ed Bell writes a sumptuous score.” BroadwayWorld
Ed was also previously an Artist-in-Residence at Pearl Studio in Shanghai, China, the animation studio behind major motion pictures including Abominable, Over the Moon and Kung Fu Panda 3.
Ed’s music has been performed around the world at venues including Brasserie Zédel in London, The Duplex in New York, The ATC Theatre in Seattle and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
As a music director, Ed has worked on projects at London’s Soho Theatre, New York’s Signature Theatre, Los Angeles’ Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Philadelphia’s Hamilton Family Arts Center, Chester’s Open Air Theatre and Leeds Playhouse.
Ed is also well-known as a music educator. In 2014 he created The Song Foundry, one of the Internet’s most popular songwriting resource sites, where his articles are now read by more than 30,000 songwriters each month.
Ed is the author of seven popular books on songwriting, including the bestselling The Art of Songwriting and How to Write a Song (Even If You’ve Never Written One Before and You Think You Suck).
Ed has created content for Songwriting Magazine and Making Music Magazine and taught songwriting at institutions including The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (ICMP) and Bath Spa University.
Ed was born in the UK in 1987 and studied at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music. He’s an alum of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, and a proud member of ASCAP and The Dramatists Guild of America.
You can keep up with what he’s up to on Instagram.