“ChrisBecca Land” from XY.
“She Reached for Heaven” from She Reached for Heaven
“Ode to Elizabeth”
Connecting To Our Shared Humanity
I’m Oliver. I am a songwriter, musical creator and event leader, inspired to harness the power of music and storytelling to open hearts and minds, and to awaken love for the inherent innocence, beauty and ridiculousness of our shared humanity
Works include XY, a semi-autobiographical musical about an intersex man learning to embrace his authentic self, and She Reached for Heaven, an original show inspired by a TED Talk that posits the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection.
In addition to writing, I love leading an original team-building experience, Create Your Company Theme Song, which inspires laughter, meaning and connection through collaborative songwriting. I am proud to work with Musicians on Call and Hear Your Song, organizations that help bring the healing power of music to those who need it most.
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, here is a song about longing, a song about love, a song about childhood, and a song about the journey of life. Enjoy!
Winner of the inaugural Stephen Schwartz Award, the ASCAP Foundation Sammy Cahn Award and a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, Oliver Houser has headlined at the Kennedy Center and presented his musicals at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, the Village Theatre, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Conference (NAMT), the SoHo Playhouse, 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 other venues across the United States.
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 the 2022 Relentless Award. He was selected for Jeanine Tesori’s Front & Center 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.