KATIE MADISON is a public school educated musical theatre composer from Traverse City, Michigan, based in the Canarsie and Munsee Lenape land known as Brooklyn.

Katie is a University of Michigan Musical Theatre alum, and has a Master's degree in Musical Theatre Writing and Composition from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Katie is a 2023, 2022 and 2021 Jonathan Larson Award finalist, and was seen in conversation with New York Times best-selling author Ibi Zoboi debuting a digital commission produced with Kweli Journal and talking about Black Queer Love with Laylah Amatullah Barryn for NPR. Katie is a recipient of the New York City Artist Corps Grant, the Tisch School of the Arts Award, the Michigan Promise Award, the Michigan Tradition Award, and a New York Stage and a Film Founders Award finalist.

Katie's musical SUN SONGS was featured in Lincoln Center's inaugural “Summer for the City Festival” in July of 2022 after initial development at Hi-ARTS as part of their Critical Breaks residency. It was then presented at the historic Weeksville Heritage Center, followed by a full workshop at New York Stage and Film in 2023. In the summer of 2024, SUN SONGS was featured at the only LGBTQIA2S+ museum in the world, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. Katie is also a 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab and National Black Theatre Soul Producing finalist who has performed, produced, and has had work commissioned by the University of Michigan's Musical Theatre Department, New York Stage and Film, Crossroads Theatre Company, American Opera Project, The Civilians, Milwaukee Skylight Theatre, The Tank, Judson Memorial Church, Rockwood Music Hall, and Dixon Place, 54 Below, Don't Tell Mama, The Stonewall Inn, The Dramatists Guild, Playwrights Horizons and with Broad Views on Broadway and Multicultural Womxn in Theatre.

Katie brings the fundamentals of a sound practice as an investigation of the destabilization of aural and bodily oppression through a meditative state rooted in, built from, and designed to be in conversation with indigenous ancestral folk form and drum circle theory, grown in the tradition of Black feminism, Queer pioneers, accessibility advocates, social work practitioners, and community builders to teaching original musical compositions and New Work at The University of Michigan's Musical Theatre Program and songwriting to elementary students in East Harlem.

DEBORAH COWELL is an editor, writer, digital artist and, recently added musical theater book writer to the mix.

Her new musical SUN SONGS by Katie Madison (music & lyrics) and Deborah Cowell (book) was featured in concert at Lincoln Center as part of their Summer For The City programming in July 2022. In August of 2022, SUN SONGS was workshopped at Marist College with New York Stage and Film. In 2023, Deborah was in residency with SPACE on Ryder Farms.

As a digital artist working primarily with black and white photography, video, and film, Deborah has had work commissioned by the University of Michigan School of Musical Theater and Dance (November 2020), Hi-Arts (May 2021), The American Opera Project (June 2021). Her work has been featured by The Weeksville Heritage Center (August 2021), Judson Memorial Church (June 2020), The Downtown Alliance in collaboration with En Garde Arts and The Tank. Deborah is currently the General Manager of Hi-ARTS, and she is proud to say she a product of the New York public school system, first grade through graduate school.