Barbara Bellman lives in Philadelphia and New York City. She earned a degree in Business Administration from Arizona State University and enjoyed a productive career in Advertising and Marketing, specializing in the health industry.
Eager to put her creative energy toward her own work, Bellman returned to school to earn an MFA in Creative Writing from Stony Brook University. While there, Barbara conceived this project as her thesis. Upon graduation, she was accepted to the BMI Musical Theatre Writing Program and subsequently earned an MFA from the Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University.
In addition to developing her craft, she was interested in understanding the business side of the industry and is an alum of the 14-week the Commercial Theatre Institute and the 3-day O’Neill workshop.
Barbara has authored three books, several plays, three musicals, and is a founding member of MusiColab (a Philadelphia-based non-profit that provides opportunity for creative teams working on new musicals to get their work heard before an audience).
Barbara’s short play, THE WINE CELLAR, was published in The Southampton Review, and was a finalist in the 2010 DC SWAN Festival, as well as the Philadelphia Playwrights Center Festival. Her young audience musical, THE WORD POLICE, written with composer David Carl, was a 2017 finalist in the Anne B. Zornio Musical Theatre Festival and performed in the Emerging Artists Theatre New Works Series (2016). Her show, FLIRTING AFTER FIFTY was a finalist with the Emerging Artists Theatre New Works Series and had a reading in NYC in March 2019. Several of her short plays and songs have been performed in Cabarets, Festivals and Workshops in Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York City. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, TRU Voices, and the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop/Librettists.
BORDELLO is a passion project that comes to life with the musical magic of Emiliano Messiez. The show is set in the 1920s, but still resonates today as women are still exploited and abused. This show is about the women who refused to continue to be subjugated and risked their lives to bring the traffickers to trial.