Jack Viertel has played National steel guitar behind Bonnie Raitt, The Pointer Sisters, and Son House, worked with playwrights from August Wilson and David Henry Hwang to Tony Kushner, spent time as a theater critic, and supervised 70 revivals of Broadway musicals for the Tony-honored Encores! program at New York City Center. He wrote the New York Times bestseller The Secret Life Of The American Musical, which remains a perennial favorite of musical theater programs in colleges and universities across America and is currently being developed as a concert evening for Carnegie Hall. His novel Broadway Melody was published in 2024, and he conceived such Broadway shows as Smokey Joe’s Café, After Midnight, and The Prom. He was the Creative Consultant for Hairspray, A Christmas Story, Dear Evan Hansen and the current The Outsiders.  There are nine Tony awards sitting on his piano, which he cannot play. He’s an openwater scuba diver and a certified Memphis-in-May barbecue judge.