Author's Bios
Randy Hale
Randy is an award-winning composer, writer, and songwriter. The great-great grandson of three sets of Oklahoma homesteaders, Hale first conceived the idea for
Songs From The Tall Grass in 1997 when he and his wife, co-writer Emily Corey, set out with their two children in search of lost songs from America's homestead period. Their travels unearthed a body of work that was the foundation for Hale's CD
Songs From The Tall Grass, released in 1998. The stage version of
Songs From The Tall Grass emerged from that recording experience. Hale has also composed the scores for a number of award-winning computer games including Steven Spielberg's
Moviemaker and the
Jump Start line, the number-one selling educational software in America.
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences nominated Hale for "Best Composer" for his work in this field. His work has been featured in film and in television and he composed the music for CBS's critically acclaimed sitcom
Thanks as well music for a 60-piece orchestra for the
Disney/Kodak Pavilion at Epcot in Orlando, Florida, Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and Euro-Disney, France. Trained as an actor at the University of Utah, Hale had a recurring role on Lifetime's,
Strong Medicine and has appeared in numerous productions of
Songs From The Tall Grass in the role of
NARRATOR.
Emily Corey
Emily is an award-wining writer and researcher and has written extensively for multimedia and advertising. She is the recipient of both Gold and Silver
CLIO Awards, the
Belding Award, the
Benny Award, and the
London International Advertising Award and her work has been selected as part of the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's
Fashion Archive Collection. She received her BA in American History from the University of California, Berkeley. She, along with her husband, Randy Hale, researched and co-wrote
Songs From The Tall Grass. She is a creative partner of
Rhizome Design, an integrated marketing firm located in Seattle, WA and Pasadena, CA.
Phoef Sutton
Phoef began writing for the NBC television series Cheers, and was the show's executive producer for several years later. He received two
Emmy Awards and a
Golden Globe Award for his work on this highly successful comedy. Sutton went on to create and executive produce television shows including
Bob, starring Bob Newhart;
Thanks, starring Cloris Leachman, and the
Fighting Fitzgeralds starring Brian Dennehy as well as the pilots
Grapefruit Moon and
Earth Scum for ABC. Sutton made the transition to feature films with the motion pictures
Mrs. Winterbourne, directed by Richard Benjamin, and
The Fan starring Robert deNiro and Wesley Snipes. His first novel,
Always Six O'Clock, was published by Putnam. He has received the
Norman Lear Award for Comedy Playwriting for
The Pendragon Institute and a
National Endowment for the Arts Playwright Fellowship Grant for his work in the theatre. He received a
Peabody Award for his contribution to the ABC series,
Boston Legal.
Michael A. Ross
Songs From The Tall Grass represents a return to the theater where Michael started as an actor, playing Che in "Evita" and The Rum Tum Tugger in "Cats" both at the Shubert Theater in Los Angeles.Switching to writing, Michael wrote episodes of "Designing Women" (CBS) before becoming Writer/Supervising Producer for the shows "Evening Shade" (CBS), "Fired Up" (NBC), and "The Trouble With Normal" (ABC).For FOX, Michael wrote and was Co-Executive Producer for the series "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" and "Life On A Stick." Also for FOX, he created and Executive Produced an action comedy pilot called, "Julie Reno, Bounty Hunter" and just finished a new pilot for 20th Century Fox Studio to be co-produced by Ashton Kutcher's Katalyst Films.Recently in a mid-life moment, Michael again played Che in a revival of "Evita", so his daughters could see him do something other than stare at a computer screen.
