{"id":42363,"date":"2025-05-16T02:09:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T07:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42363"},"modified":"2025-05-16T02:52:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T07:52:31","slug":"charles-strouse-broadway-composer-of-annie-and-bye-bye-birdie-dies-at-96","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42363","title":{"rendered":"Charles Strouse, Broadway composer of ‘Annie’ and ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’ dies at 96"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW YORK — Three-time Tony Award-winner Charles Strouse, Broadway’s industrious, master melody-maker who composed the music for such classic musical theater hits as “Annie,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause,” died Thursday. He was 96.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strouse died at his home in New York City, his family said through the publicity agency The Press Room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Strouse wrote more than a dozen Broadway musicals, as well as film scores and the song “Those Were the Days,” the theme song for the sitcom “All in the Family.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strouse turned out such popular \u2014 and catchy \u2014 show tunes as “Tomorrow,” the optimistic anthem from “Annie,”<\/a> and the equally cheerful “Put on a Happy Face” from “Bye Bye Birdie,” his first Broadway success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I work every day. Activity \u2014 it’s a life force,” the New York-born composer told The Associated Press during an interview on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2008. “When you enjoy doing what you’re doing, which I do very much, I have something to get up for.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep into his 90s, he was visiting tours of his shows and meeting casts. Jenn Thompson, who appeared in the first \u201cAnnie\u201d as Pepper and directed a touring version of \u201cAnnie\u201d in 2024, recalls Strouse coming to auditions and shedding a tear when a young girl sang \u201cTomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was tearing up and he put his hand on mine,\u201d she recalled. \u201cAnd he leaned in to me and very quietly said, \u2018That was you. That used to be you.\u2019 And I thought I would die. I thought my heart would drop out of my shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added: \u201cHe\u2019s so gorgeously generous and kind. He has always been that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Three-time Tony Award-winner Charles Strouse, Broadway’s industrious, master melody-maker who composed the music for such classic musical theater hits as “Annie,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause,” died Thursday. He was 96. Strouse died at his home in New York City, his family said through the publicity agency The Press Room. In a career […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":42364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[33307,3318,33308],"class_list":["post-42363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","tag-bye","tag-charles","tag-strouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42365,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42363\/revisions\/42365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}