Photo by Kathryn Hayden
Sonya Hayden (she/her) is an award-winning lyricist, composer, librettist, and playwright from Central Virginia, now based in New York. Her work is rooted at the intersection of hilarity and heartbreak, the political and the personal. She is particularly drawn to exploring multi-faceted female characters and the forces that constrain, shape, and liberate them.
She is the recipient of the MAC John Wallowitch Songwriting Award, ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition Lucy Powis Mentorship Prize, Kurt Weill Foundation Songbook Award, Across a Crowded Room Fellowship, ASCAP Plus Award, Legacy Theatre Artist Residency, Marble House Project Residency, and Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. Finalist: Kleban Prize for Musical Theatre, Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF) Fellows, the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Festival Play Contest, Manhattan School of Music's Musical Theatre Lab Series, Michigan State University’s New Musical Laboratory, and the Circle in the Square Theatre School’s Writers Residency. Semi-Finalist: O’Neill National Music Theater Conference.
She is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre & Bookwriting Workshops, the NY Songwriters Alliance, the Dramatists Guild, and ASCAP. She was previously a member of the Recording Academy’s Musical Theater Mentorship Program, New Perspectives Theatre’s Full-Length Play LAB, Maestra Music’s Mentorship Program, and the Princeton Triangle Club Writers Workshop (Milton Lyon Award for Outstanding Writing). She has been a Script Supervisor at Audible and is the Co-Director of Maestra Music's Mentorship Program.
In musical theater, her work includes For Love or Funny (music/co-book, Lincoln Center Library), Wanda Does the Water Cycle (book/music/lyrics, Lincoln Center Festival, licensed by MTI/Theatre Now New York), Crazy But True (book/lyrics, CAIM Creative Co.), and The Luckiest Girl (book/music/lyrics, Princeton University). Her song “Our Little Life” (lyrics) was performed by Tony nominee Karen Akers at Urban Stages and “Away From It All” (music) was selected for a Maestra Music/Circle in the Square Theatre School Collab and performed on their Broadway stage.
As a playwright, Sonya's recent work includes Cassie Goes to Congress (New Perspectives Theatre), There's Always Tomorrow (Piccolo Spoleto Festival), Just Like Magic (Little Fish Theatre), and The Clumps (Pittsburgh New Works Festival, MainStage Series).
She holds a Master’s in Playwriting with Distinction from the University of Edinburgh, a Bachelor's of Music (summa cum laude) with a minor in Theater from Princeton University, and the world record for cups of Earl Grey tea downed while writing.
