New York based Australian composer/lyricist and performer Matthew Lee Robinson has won the UTAS Stephen Schwartz Songwriting Award, the Pratt Prize for Music Theatre, the $100,000 Australia Council Music Fellowship and been nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work. He is a Churchill Fellow and has been a writer in residence at the Goodspeed Johnny Mercer Writers Colony.
His original musical ATLANTIS received its first production in Spring 2019 at Virginia Repertory Theatre, led by Tony-nominated director Kristin Hanggi. Robinson's stage adaptation of The Magic School Bus has completed two U.S. national tours, produced by TheaterWorksUSA, with direction & choreography by Connor Gallagher (Elf The Musical, Beetlejuice The Musical). His next original musical, Black Box, was most recently developed in conjunction with Broadway Dreams Foundation. Robinson's music has been heard in concert at Carnegie Hall, Broadway’s Future Songbook Series, Goodspeed Musicals, iTheatrics Junior Theater Festival (Atlanta), Junior Thespian Festival (Dallas Keynote Speaker), Ars Nova NYC Uncharted series, Seattle’s New Voices series and at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Robinson's writing credits also include songs for the Emmy-nominated television series Dance Academy, the five time Helpmann-nominated musical Metro Street (State Theatre Company of South Australia and Daegu International Musical Festival), the musical revue Sing On Through Tomorrow (Glug Award, Original Cast Recording available through iTunes), the Shirley Bassey biographical cabaret Where Do I Begin? The Voice of Shirley Bassey and the Australian national tours of three music showcases featuring Helpmann Award-winning actress Lucy Durack. In the corporate sphere, Matthew has penned songs for the events of Coca-Cola, Nintendo, Bosch, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Nokia Siemens Networks and the Australian Open Tennis Championships.
A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, his on-screen acting credits include the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks teleseries The Pacific, the Fox 8 reality series The Singing Office, guest roles on Stingers and Blue Heelers and appearing opposite Mary Tyler Moore in the telemovie A Most Deadly Family. On stage, he has performed three roles for Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House: Freddy Eynsford-Hill in My Fair Lady, Henrik in A Little Night Music and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance. Matthew also appeared as the title role in Pippin (Peter Cousens' Kookaburra), Hortensio in Kiss Me Kate (The Production Company), Teague in the World Premiere of Australian play God's Last Acre (Playbox) and the original Australian cast of MAMMA MIA!
Robinson is a proud musical theatre educator, having been a guest lecturer at institutions including the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Australian Institute of Music, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Sheridan College (Toronto) and Lasalle College of the Arts (Singapore). He has led workshops for Broadway Dreams, New York's Open Jar Institute and the Arthur Miller Foundation Fellows Program, and produced two workshop series across Australia, The Singing Actor and Matthew Lee Robinson Presents New Voices. His music currently appears in the published and extended works for the Australian Music Examinations Board Musical Theatre syllabus.
