Lynn Ahrens (born October 1, 1948) is an American writer and lyricist for the musical theatre, television and film. She has collaborated with Stephen Flaherty for many years. She won the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for the Broadway musical Ragtime. Together with Flaherty, they have written many musicals, including Lucky Stiff, Once on This Island, My Favorite Year, Ragtime, Seussical, A Man of No Importance, Dessa Rose, The Glorious Ones, and most recently seen on Broadway, Rocky the Musical. 　　She was also nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for the animated Twentieth Century Fox film Anastasia. She wrote the teleplay of her 1994 musical adaption of A Christmas Carol, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Ahrens. She is a mainstay writer and performer for ABC-TV's Schoolhouse Rock. Ahrens also wrote lyrics for the title song for After the Storm, the documentary film about young Hurricane Katrina survivors putting on Once On This Island. 　　Ahrens was born in New York City, graduated from Neptune High School on the Jersey shore, and graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Journalism and English. She is Jewish. 　　She then began a career in advertising as a copywriter for McCaffrey and McCall. It was her first job out of college. She was living with her ex-husband in Flushing, sleeping on the floor of his sister's apartment. While working as a secretary/copywriter, she would bring her guitar to play and write songs during lunch. George Newall was passing by and asked her casually to write a song for Schoolhouse Rock!. She wrote "The Preamble", and it went on the air with Ahrens singing it. After that she began regularly writing songs for the show.] She subsequently worked as a freelance composer and singer of commercial music, and wrote and produced a number of songs for children's television, particularly Captain Kangaroo. She began writing for the musical theater in 1982. 　　Ahrens met Stephen Flaherty at the BMI Workshop in 1982 and they started working together the following year. Their first collaboration was Bedazzled, based off the 1967 film of the same name, but had to abandon it when they could not secure the rights. They did some workshops, where Ira Weitzman noticed them and he was able to get the pair a NEA grant. Weitzman also connected the pair with George C. Wolfe, and they collaborated on a piece called Antler, but according to Ahrens, "no one could figure it out." The pairs' first produced musical was a children's musical, The Emperor's New Clothes for Theatreworks USA. Their first professionally produced musical together was Lucky Stiff, which premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in April 1988. Their next musical was Once on This Island, which premiered on Broadway in 1990 and which was nominated for eight Tony Awards. My Favorite Year opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center in October 1992 but ran for only 36 performances. 　　Ragtime followed, opening on Broadway in January 1998 and running for 834 performances. Ragtime was nominated for twelve Tony Awards and won the Best Original Score, in addition to the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics. Ragtime was revived on Broadway in 2009, and was nominated for seven Tony Awards. 　　Seussical opened on Broadway on November 2000, and received a Grammy nomination. The musical later ran Off-Broadway in 2007, where it was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Revival and the Drama League Award as Distinguished Revival of a Musical. This is one of the most performed musicals in the US.[5] Ahrens and Flaherty's next musicals, A Man of No Importance (2002), Dessa Rose (2005), and The Glorious Ones (2007) were produced at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in Lincoln Center. They have frequently worked with director and choreographer Graciela Daniele. 　　They wrote original songs for the Chita Rivera autobiographical show, "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life," in 2005. 　　Their musical version of Rocky the Musical premiered in Hamburg, Germany in October 2012. The show is based on the film Rocky and has a book by Thomas Meehan. Rocky the Musical opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on February 11, 2014 (previews), and officially opened on March 13, 2014. The musical is directed by Alex Timbers, with boxing choreography by Steven Hoggett and choreography by Kelly Devine. The former occupant of the Winter Garden Theatre, the musical Mamma Mia!, transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre in November 2013. Andy Karl and Margo Seibert are featured as Rocky Balboa and Adrian. 　　They have written a dance musical, Little Dancer, with direction and choreography by Susan Stroman, about a ballerina and Edgar Degas, which had a reading in 2010 at Lincoln Center Theaterand a developmental lab production in June 2012. Little Dancer premiered at the Kennedy Center, Eisenhower Theater in October 2014 and closed on November 30, 2014. The cast starred Rebecca Luker, Boyd Gaines and Tiler Peck. The musical had a private reading on March 28, 2016, after having been revised.