Neil Berg
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- Goldman Sachs12 min
Neil Berg, Composer, Lyricist and Producer: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Neil Berg, a playwright who abandoned a planned career in law to pursue musical theater after an emotional breakthrough during his university years, discusses the rigorous demands of the industry and the necessity of treating art as an unavoidable calling. His current project, the rock musical "The 12" about the apostles, won the 2015 Henry Award following a difficult collaborative evolution with Tony winner Robert Schenken that required discarding existing compositions to align on a strict book-first structure. Berg further outlines essential mechanics for musical storytelling, emphasizing that successful productions rely on the precise alignment of approximately 50 collaborators and the strategic use of opening songs to establish character desires within the first ten minutes.