Photo © 2019 Kenneth Camara
Photo © 2018 Joseph Legáspi
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Paulo K Tiról (he/him) was born and raised in Manila, Philippines, where he majored in Communication at Ateneo de Manila University and worked for over a decade as a corporate professional, alongside being a self-taught composer and arranger of choral liturgical music and superfan of western musical theatre. In 2012, he left corporate life and moved to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music. A year later he moved to New York City, having been offered a full tuition scholarship for the MFA in Musical Theatre Writing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Today, Paulo is a musical theatre writer and liturgical musician working in New York City and Jersey City.
As a musical theatre writer, Paulo was awarded the Dramatists Guild Foundation's inaugural Benjamin Indick Award for lyricists, librettists and bookwriters of musical theatre in 2021, and was one of eleven musical theatre writers and playwrights in the 2019-20 class of Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellows. His musical theatre projects include:
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ON THIS SIDE OF THE WORLD (music and lyrics): world premiere at East West Players in Los Angeles, CA, 2023, with cast album released 2024; residencies at Rhinebeck Writers Retreat and Catwalk Art Institute, 2022; NAMT Festival 2020; Prospect Theater Co.'s IGNITE concert series 2020; staged readings by East West Players in Los Angeles, CA in 2022, and Musical Theatre West in Long Beach, CA in 2021; workshop production by Three Hares at Access Theater, 2019, all directed by Noam Shapiro.
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DEAR AMERICA (music, lyrics, and book): adapted from the memoir of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and immigration rights activist Jose Antonio Vargas: Next Stage Residency at the Drama League, 2022-23; residencies at Catwalk Art Institute, 2022, and Theatre Latte Da in Minneapolis, MN, 2023 and 2024; directed by Noam Shapiro.
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WHAT THE MOON SAW (original music): a play with music by Stephanie Fleischmann, produced by Syracuse University's Department of Drama. Syracuse Stage, NY, 2025; directed by Danyon Davis.
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"Mr. What's His Name" (music and lyrics), commissioned for Prospect Theater Company's NOTES FROM NOW, 59e59 Theaters, 2022; directed by Billy Bustamante.
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"Love Songs"(music, lyrics, and book), part of Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre's GEN SPEAK, 2021, directed by Marella Martin Koch);
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CALLED (music, lyrics, and book): DGF Fellows showcase & virtual reading in 2020; directed by May Adrales.
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Ma-Yi Theatre Co.'s FELIX STARRO (orchestrations): book and lyrics by Jessica Hagedorn, music by Fabian Obispo, directed by Ralph B. Peña. Theatre Row, New York City, 2019.
Additionally, Paulo has developed new pieces with Prospect Theater Co.'s Musical Theater Lab (directed by Dev Bondarin) and Emerson Stage / Live and in Color (directed by Dev Janki). His work has been featured at Joe's Pub, New York Theatre Barn's New Works Series, the NAMT Festival of New Musicals' Songwriters Cabaret, Barrington Stage Co., and more. Paulo trained as a composer at NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, which he attended on a full-tuition scholarship; and as a lyricist in the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, and has been represented by Bret Adams, Ltd. for his musical theatre writing since 2021.
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As a liturgical composer, Paulo's composition "Still We Sing Alleuia" was named Song of the Year by the Association of Catholic Publishers in their 2021 Excellence in Publishing Awards. His work is published by the two largest publishers of liturgical music in the United States, Oregon Catholic Press (OCP) and GIA Publications. He was commissioned to write Saint Peter's Mass for Saint Peter's University in Jersey City, NJ in 2015, and Saint Jarlath's Mass for St. Jarlath Catholic Church in Oakland, CA, in 2019. Paulo is a regular music director and accompanist for Masses at St. Aedan's: The Saint Peter's University Church in Jersey City, NJ, and the young adult Mass at the Church of the Epiphany in New York City. He also continues to write and arrange songs for Hangad, the award-winning vocal group under the Jesuit Music Ministry in Manila with which he sang for Masses, performed for concerts, and recorded studio albums with for 17 years, before he moved to Boston.
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Paulo lives in northern New Jersey with his husband Jeremy.
Photo © 2018 Joseph Legáspi