Brown grew up in the suburbs of New York City, and attended the Eastman School o

f Music in Rochester, New York for 2 years.[2] During summer, he attended French
Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in Hancock, New York. He said Sweeney Tod
d: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sunday in the Park with George were two
of his biggest influences, and had it not been for them, he would have joined a
rock band and tried to be Billy Joel.[3]
He began his career in New York City as an arranger, conductor, and pianist, wor
king on shows such as William Finn's A New Brain, and playing at several nightcl
ubs and piano bars in the city. Songs for a New World marked the first major New
York production of Brown's songs. An off-Broadway revue with a limited run, the
show was directed by Daisy Prince, daughter of director/producer Hal Prince, an
d featured the 25-year-old Brown's pop-rock-influenced music.[4] The song "Stars
and the Moon" has since become a cabaret standard, and is probably Brown's best
-known composition to date.[5]
Brown was introduced to Harold Prince through his association with Daisy Prince,
and was hired to write songs for the Broadway musical Parade, based on the tria
l and lynching of Leo Frank. Parade, directed by Hal Prince, and with a book by
Alfred Uhry, won Brown the 1999 Tony Award for Best Original Musical Score.[6] D
uring this production, Livent, one of the producers of Parade, pulled out after
reviews were not as positive as they'd hoped. RCA Victor, the other major produc
er, decided it would pull out as well. Brown said of the event in 1999, "Livent
dropped out shortly after the reviews came out. They announced they would not sp
end another dime on the show. RCA had an agreement to record all of Livent's sho
ws. But when Livent pulled out of 'Parade,' the RCA higher-ups said they were pu
lling out, too. I had to go to Billy Rosenfield and ask him: 'What if we pay for
this record and you just distribute it?' Billy said, 'Sure.'" Brown had to try
to scrounge money from every corner, "In the end, RCA put in $25,000, Lincoln Ce
nter put in a big chunk, around $200,000, including the producer Scott Rudin's $
25,000, and there was a contribution from the Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla foundati
on, which has helped support a lot of musical theatre composers over the years,
of $40,000. Even Roy Furman, the new guy at Livent, gave us a little money. Some
how, we pulled it together." Livent also was struggling at the time because the
company had mishandled funds while allying for bankruptcy protection.[7]
Brown went back to working with Daisy Prince for his third major show The Last F
ive Years, for which he wrote the book as well as songs. Inspired by his own fai
led first marriage, the show is a two-person musical which tells the history of
a relationship from two different perspectives. The male's narrative begins at t
he beginning of the story and progresses through marriage, infidelity, and divor
ce, while the female narrative begins at the end of the relationship and ends wi
th the couple's first date; the two actors' only direct interaction takes place
midpoint, during the wedding sequence.[8] The original Chicago cast consisted of
Norbert Leo Butz and Lauren Kennedy, with Sherie Rene Scott over the New York r
un. The Last Five Years received mixed critical reviews and was not a commercial
success, lasting only two months off-Broadway, although Brown garnered 2 Drama
Desk Awards for music and lyrics. Additionally, due to the cast recording featur
ing Scott and Butz, the show has gained popularity among contemporary musical th
eatre aficionados and is an oft-performed piece in regional and community theatr
es.[9][10]
Brown contributed several songs to the Broadway flop Urban Cowboy. He had worked
as an orchestrator with director Phillip Oesterman on the Off-Broadway musical
New York Rock, and Oesterman called on him to help him out with Urban Cowboy. Ur
ban Cowboy had been denied the use of the Clint Black catalog, and Brown came in
and wrote a few songs (with help from director Lonny Price, who replaced Oester
man after he died).[11] The show was nominated, with 30 other composers, for the
2003 Tony Award for best Musical Score, losing out to Hairspray.[6][12]
In June 2005, Brown released a solo album, entitled Wearing Someone Else's Cloth
es.[13]
In December 2005, his Chanukah Suite received its world premiere with two perfor
mances by the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.[14]
He also teaches courses in musical theatre performance and composition at the Un

iversity of Southern California. Brown is an active performer of his own work, s

inging and playing the piano with or without his band, the Caucasian Rhythm King
s (Gary Sieger, guitar, and Randy Landau, bass).[10]
Brown's tween-oriented musical 13 premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angel
es, CA on January 7, 2007. It opened on Broadway October 5, 2008 at the Bernard
B. Jacobs Theatre, and closed on January 4, 2009.[2][6]
His Bridges of Madison County, a musical adaption of the film with Marsha Norman
[15] premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival on August 1, 2013. Directed
by Bartlett Sher, the cast featured Elena Shaddow as Francesca and Steven Pasqua
le.[16] The musical opened on Broadway on February 27, 2014, at the Gerald Schoe
nfeld Theatre, starring Kelli O'Hara as Francesca.[17]
According to Brown, Brian Lowdermilk used to be an assistant to him.[18] Brown h
as recently publicized his personal efforts to discourage the unauthorized onlin
e sharing of his copyrighted sheet music via an e-mail conversation with a teena
ger named Eleanor.[18]