Hi there!
I’m Oliver. I’m a musical theater writer who’s inspired to harness the power of music and storytelling to open hearts and minds, facilitate meaning and connection, and illuminate the beauty and innocence of our shared humanity, all while garnering exposure for communities that need it most.
Works include XY, an original musical about an intersex man navigating his first romantic relationship, and She Reached for Heaven, inspired by Johann Hari’s TED Talk, “Everything You Know About Addiction Is Wrong,” which posits the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. Also in development is Wunderkind, a new musical about a young piano prodigy growing up in a Jewish-American family in the early 20th century.
My passion for connecting audiences through music led me to realize it can connect corporate teams in the same way. I've led my original team-bonding experience, Create Your Theme Song, with groups from Google, Microsoft, Cisco and beyond. Virtually and in person, I help teams get aligned on shared values and goals, crafting an original anthem with them celebrating the wonderful, special and hilarious things about their team or company.
I’d be delighted to add you to my newsletter, which you can sign up for here. I love connecting with people and will be very happy to hear from you.
Thank you so much for visiting. If you don’t know where to start, here is a funny song, here is a life-affirming song, here is a song about loss, a song about longing, a song about childhood, a song about how to get through, and a song about the journey of life.
Winner of the inaugural Stephen Schwartz Award (Stephen Schwartz wrote Wicked), the ASCAP Foundation Sammy Cahn Award and a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, Oliver Houser (he/him) has headlined at the Kennedy Center and presented his musicals at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Seattle’s Village Theatre, the NAMT Festival, Off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse, Nashville Rep, the New York Musical Festival, the New York International Fringe Festival, the Other Palace Theatre in the UK, London’s Royal Academy of Music and beyond.
Oliver has developed work at the Ucross Foundation, the KHN Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, the Goodspeed Musicals Writers Grove and the Warren Miller Center for the Arts. Oliver is a Jonathan Larson Grant finalist, and his work was a finalist for the O’Neill Musical Theatre Conference and one of three finalists for the 2022 Relentless Award, the largest prize presented to an unproduced musical. He was selected for Jeanine Tesori’s Front & Center Master Class and American Theatre Wing’s “Pitching Your Show” Master Class, and is an alum of the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop, the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop and the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project. Oliver is a proud member of ASCAP and The Dramatists Guild.