Biography
Shaina Taub, honored with a Tony Award in her dual capacity as singer/songwriter and composer/lyricist, reveals a nimble command of vocals, words, and melodies across solo projects that fuse pop, jazz, and folk with her inventive, witty musical-theater works. She established herself professionally in both spheres during the early 2010s and issued her first full-length solo album, Visitors, in 2015. While serving as artist-in-residence at the Public Theater, she introduced her Shakespeare adaptations, whose cast albums for Twelfth Night and As You Like It surfaced in 2018 and 2022. Her third solo album and Atlantic Records debut, Songs of the Great Hill, arrived the same year. In 2024 she reached Broadway with Suffs, the musical drawn from the American women’s suffrage movement; the show carried a Tony-winning book and score by Taub, who also appeared in the original Broadway cast.
Growing up in Waitsfield, Vermont, Taub immersed herself in musical theater and studied cast albums intently. She began performing early, appearing in productions at the local Valley Players Theater, traveling to Burlington for community theater, and attending dance classes in Montpelier. From seventh grade onward she joined her school’s yearly musical, then relocated to New York after finishing high school in 2005 at age 16. Focused solely on a musical-theater career, she completed her studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2009 and promptly secured accompanist positions through her piano skills. Encouraged by a professor to treat songwriting seriously, she adopted the pomodoro technique of brief, concentrated work sessions to advance her writing.
Her independently released debut EP, What Otters Do, reached listeners in 2011 with a refined mix of classic piano pop, jazz, and folk. That year her “soul-folk opera” The Daughters earned finalist status for the 2011 Richard Rodgers Awards. She held the Ars Nova composer-in-residence post in 2012. Early in 2013 she issued the self-titled trio EP under the Shaina Taub Trio name. Returning to theater, she received the Jonathan Larson Award in 2014, followed by the December 2015 release of her self-released debut album Visitors.
In 2016 Taub contributed original songs to the off-Broadway revival of Old Hats, the hybrid musical-sketch-revue created by Bill Irwin and David Shiner with music by Nellie McKay. A sampler EP, Songs from Old Hats, appeared on Sh-K-Boom Records that April. She undertook a year-long residency at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan in 2017, the year she also received the Fred Ebb Award, and, in partnership with Public Works, presented her Shakespeare adaptation Twelfth Night in Central Park. June 2018 brought her second solo album, Die Happy. The original cast recording of Twelfth Night followed on Craft Recordings late that year. During this period her activism supported progressive candidates, voting rights, and immigrant rights, among other initiatives, while she performed in productions such as Hadestown and the Ragtime concert on Ellis Island. In 2019 she was awarded the Kleban Prize, given to a promising lyricist and librettist in American theater and carrying a $100,000 grant.
Continuing her ascent, Taub made her Atlantic Records debut in April 2022 with her third album, Songs of the Great Hill. That December, Concord issued the original Public Works cast recording of her further Shakespeare adaptation, As You Like It. The year also marked the off-Broadway premiere of her original musical Suffs at the Public Theater, centered on the U.S. women’s suffrage movement in the decade before the 19th Amendment. With Hillary Clinton and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai among its producers, the show transferred to Broadway in April 2024 and captured the Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score Written for the Theatre. Later that year her lyrics appeared with music by Elton John in the London West End stage-musical version of the novel and film The Devil Wears Prada.
Growing up in Waitsfield, Vermont, Taub immersed herself in musical theater and studied cast albums intently. She began performing early, appearing in productions at the local Valley Players Theater, traveling to Burlington for community theater, and attending dance classes in Montpelier. From seventh grade onward she joined her school’s yearly musical, then relocated to New York after finishing high school in 2005 at age 16. Focused solely on a musical-theater career, she completed her studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2009 and promptly secured accompanist positions through her piano skills. Encouraged by a professor to treat songwriting seriously, she adopted the pomodoro technique of brief, concentrated work sessions to advance her writing.
Her independently released debut EP, What Otters Do, reached listeners in 2011 with a refined mix of classic piano pop, jazz, and folk. That year her “soul-folk opera” The Daughters earned finalist status for the 2011 Richard Rodgers Awards. She held the Ars Nova composer-in-residence post in 2012. Early in 2013 she issued the self-titled trio EP under the Shaina Taub Trio name. Returning to theater, she received the Jonathan Larson Award in 2014, followed by the December 2015 release of her self-released debut album Visitors.
In 2016 Taub contributed original songs to the off-Broadway revival of Old Hats, the hybrid musical-sketch-revue created by Bill Irwin and David Shiner with music by Nellie McKay. A sampler EP, Songs from Old Hats, appeared on Sh-K-Boom Records that April. She undertook a year-long residency at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan in 2017, the year she also received the Fred Ebb Award, and, in partnership with Public Works, presented her Shakespeare adaptation Twelfth Night in Central Park. June 2018 brought her second solo album, Die Happy. The original cast recording of Twelfth Night followed on Craft Recordings late that year. During this period her activism supported progressive candidates, voting rights, and immigrant rights, among other initiatives, while she performed in productions such as Hadestown and the Ragtime concert on Ellis Island. In 2019 she was awarded the Kleban Prize, given to a promising lyricist and librettist in American theater and carrying a $100,000 grant.
Continuing her ascent, Taub made her Atlantic Records debut in April 2022 with her third album, Songs of the Great Hill. That December, Concord issued the original Public Works cast recording of her further Shakespeare adaptation, As You Like It. The year also marked the off-Broadway premiere of her original musical Suffs at the Public Theater, centered on the U.S. women’s suffrage movement in the decade before the 19th Amendment. With Hillary Clinton and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai among its producers, the show transferred to Broadway in April 2024 and captured the Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score Written for the Theatre. Later that year her lyrics appeared with music by Elton John in the London West End stage-musical version of the novel and film The Devil Wears Prada.
Albums
Suffs (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
2024
As You Like It (Original Public Works Cast Recording)
2022
Songs of the Great Hill
2022
Twelfth Night (Original Public Works Cast Recording)
2022
Songs From Old Hats
2016
Singles
