The three -time winner of the Tony Charles Strouse award, Broadway’s teacher, teacher Melody Maker who composed the music for classic successes such as “Annie”, “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause”, he died
New York – The three -time winner of the Tony Charles Strouse award, Broadway’s teacher, teacher Melody Maker who composed the music for classic music theater successes such as “Annie”, “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause”, died Thursday. He was 96 years old.
Strouse died at home in New York City, his family said through the advertising agency The Press Room.
In a race that covered more than 50 years, Strouse wrote more than a dozen Broadway musicals, as well as cinematographic scores and the song “Thantos Were the Days”, The Them Song for the comedy “All in the family”.
Strouse was so popular, and catchy, sizes like “tomorrow”, the optimistic anthem of “Annie” And the equally cheerful “put on a happy face” by “Bye Bye Birdie”, his first Broadway success.
“I work every day. Activity: it is a vital force,” said the composer born in New York to The Associated Press during an interview on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2008. “When you enjoy doing what you are doing, which I do a lot, I have something to get up.”
In his 90 years, he was visiting tours of his shows and was casting. Jenn Thompson, who appeared in the first “Annie” as Pepper and directed a tourist version of “Annie” in 2024, recalls that Strouse reached auditions and spilled a tear when a girl sang “Tomorrow”.
“He was crying and put his hand on mine,” he recalled. “And he leaned towards me and said very silently: ‘That was you. That you used to be you’. And I thought I would die.
She added: “He is so magnificently generous and friendly. It has always been so.”
