Meet the Fellows: Tim Rosser, Composer

Credits Include: The Boy Who Danced on Air (NAMT 2013) and The Profit of Creation (Yale Institute of Music Theatre ) with bookwriter/lyricist Charlie Sohne

Tim Rosser

• Who do you look to for inspiration?

Growing up, I think it was Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Meredith Wilson, Stephen Sondheim, Jeanine Tesori, Adam Guettel and Harold Arlen who inspired me.  Sort of in that order.  I had kind of intense composer crushes.  I’d hear something wonderful and, as a show of enthusiasm, I’d want to write something just as dazzling and romantic and balanced.  That’s what I go for: dazzling, romantic and balanced.  (Hahaha. I finally know what to put in my okCupid profile.  Thanks, DGF.) Then I would find out who wrote it and become obsessed with them.  Then I’d move on.  Poor George Gershwin still misses me, but IT’S OVER GEORGE.  God.  (It’s never really over.)  Now I mostly get hooked on singers, some of them songwriters: Alicia Keys, Audra McDonald, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell, Judy Garland, Lana del Ray, Norah Jones, Rihanna… I literally just cut-and-pasted my iTunes playlists.  That’s why it’s alphabetical… if you’re OCD and you know it, clap your hands! *clap, clap*  

I will also say that I look to Charlie Sohne for inspiration.  He has a lot of good ideas.  If I had any guts and were a little more of a jerk, he would have been my entire answer to this.  And his interview is already published so he wouldn’t have a chance in the world of returning the flattery.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, would DESTROY HIM!!

•      What is the one thing you hope to accomplish this year?

Destroy Charlie Sohne.

Just kidding.  I want us to finish our new musical!

•      What’s the best (or worst) job not related to your career you ever had?

You put me in a very difficult position here, Dramatists Guild.  I should talk myself up here.  I should flaunt an achievement.  But is that really me?

I worked in the Wendy’s drive-through.  Best or worst?  You decide.

•      Where would you rather be if you couldn’t be here doing this?

Nowhere else!  You, me and these questions are all I need.

•      When did you decide you were going to take over the universe?

The very suggestion is overwhelming.  This, I was not prepared for.  There are dishes in the sink and I seriously need to do my laundry.  When did you decide you were going to BLOW MY MIND TODAY?  

I think I was 17.  In the Wendy’s drive-through.

•      Why would you ever stop writing, if you ever stopped writing?

I’m afraid of finding out!  It’s such a gift to get to spend the hours and hours writing this stuff.  I couldn’t be more grateful to get to do it.  It makes me sort of emotional.  Honestly, I don’t have the personality to ever want to take over the universe in even a metaphorical way (re: the previous question).  I mostly want everyone to be peaceful and to find the way to my own personal happiness.  Writing has felt like a part of that journey.  Hopefully it will continue to be!

Bonus Question: How do you measure, measure a year?

I count the bodies.

You know what?  I’m just going to put this whole thing in my okCupid profile!