John Dempsey is an American lyricist, librettist, and playwright. Having grown up listening to musical theatre from an early age, he credits shows like The Music Man, West Side Story, Oliver!, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Sweeney Todd as his influences. Dempsey is most notable for his collaborations with composer Dana P. Rowe. Together, Dempsey and Rowe wrote the musicals Zombie Prom (about a high school boy who returns from the dead after committing suicide at a nuclear power plant), The Fix (about an American politician who gets involved with the mafia), The Witches of Eastwick (based on the John Updike novel, about three small-town women who are seduced magically and sexually by the devil), and Brother Russia (about a less-than-mediocre troupe of traveling actors whose leader believes himself to be eccentric Russian figure Rasputin). Additionally, Dempsey collaborated with Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil (of Les Misérables fame) on The Pirate Queen, based on the life of 16th century Irish pirate Grace O’Malley.
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