“Throughout my career in advertising, and now writing and musical theatre, my goal has always been to find the core idea of a story, and develop it in a creative, honest way.”

Barbara Bellman

Ms. Bellman is an author, librettist, lyricist, producer and playwright – and a founding member of The Producers’ Fund – a Philadelphia-based coalition of producers supporting women created and/or directed theatre. She co-produced the Philadelphia Main Street Musicals Festival for three years. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the League of Professional Women in Theatre.

She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Stony Brook University (2012) and a Bachelor of Science in Business from Arizona State University (1973). After a successful career in Advertising (Advertising Person of the Year – 2002), Barbara returned to her first love – writing full time, and was accepted to the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop (2015) and the Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program at NYU (Class of 2018).

Several of her plays have been performed in Festivals. She is a four-time winner of the Philadelphia one-minute play festival; her 20-minute play, The Wine Cellar, was a winner in the DC Swan Festival in addition to its publication in The Southampton Review literary journal. The Word Police was a finalist in the Anna B. Zornio Children’s Musical Theatre Festival, and selected for a concert reading in the Emerging Artists Theatre Festival of New Works. Her 20-minute piece, Words Fail Me was performed by the Philadelphia Dramatists Center.

She is a resident of both Philadelphia and New York City.