Adryan was born into a family that valued education and music. There was a grand piano in the house from the day she was born. She grew up listening to classical music as well as pop, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and, of course, the blues – she’s from Chicago. Earning a master’s degree in English with a minor in music from the University of Illinois, she traveled to New York, where she saw Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, which changed her life. “I wanted to write songs like those,” she says.
Music
After joining the Peace Corps, working with schools for two years in Medellín, Colombia, learning to love the cumbia and play guitar with fellow volunteers and a wonderful Colombian family, she returned to the U.S. and saw an ad in the Los Angeles Times for songwriters who love musicals to join the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, later known as the BMI Workshop. Submitted and accepted, she met playwright Doug Haverty, with whom she has since co-written the off-Broadway musical Inside Out, which has played theaters across the U.S., in Switzerland and Belgrade, Serbia; and also iGhost, a musicalized spin on Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost; and Love Again, a trilogy of three short musicals. She co-wrote a version of The Ugly Duckling with Lloyd J. Schwartz, best known for The Brady Bunch/Gilligan’s Island.
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Workshops & Readings
Adryan was invited into ASCAP’s Musical Theatre Workshop twice – once in Los Angeles, moderated by Stephen Schwartz with the Haverty/Russ musical Love & Order; and another in Chicago, moderated by Craig Carnelia, with Ebenezer: Return of the Scrooge, co-written with Chicago playwright Keith Huff.
A particular thrill was being invited by ASCAP to participate in Michael Feinstein’s tribute to Charles Strouse at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Performance Center, accompanying Sharon McNight on one of her own songs and singing and playing a Charles Strouse song.
The Society of Composers & Lyricists
After joining The Society of Composers & Lyricists (TheSCL.com), Adryan met fellow member Joel Evans, with whom she’s co-written many single songs – songs they call big band “new” standards, which have been placed in such films as Doubt (Meryl Streep), Holidate, and TV shows such as WandaVision, Masters of Horror, Young Sheldon and Mindy Project. She served on the Board of The SCL for 12 years, chairing the SongArts Committee, publicly interviewing Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil when the film Les Miserables was released, and now interviews outstanding songwriters for The SCL magazine The Score, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, and Amandla Stenberg.
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Adryan participated in a tribute to Charles Strouse, with Michael Feinstein, at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall; and at Chicago Humanities Festival's "ASCAP Cabaret: Her Turn" with Karen Mason, and an array of Chicago cabaret performers.
LML Music released Everyone Has A Story: The Songs of Adryan Russ, produced by Bruce Kimmel and arranged by Grant Geissman. Her songs are performed by some of Los Angeles and Broadway stages' best, including David Burnham, Tami Tappan Damiano, Susan Egan, Jason Graae, Juliana Hansen, Sharon McNight and Joan Ryan.
Adryan wrote the lyric for "White Lies" for the film The Check Is In The Mail, with Brian Dennehy and Ann Archer; and music and lyrics for several animated features and theme park presentations for Landmark Entertainment. She has collaborated with television and film composers, writing lyrics to their music. Most recently a song co-written with Joel Evans appeared in John Patrick Shanley's film Doubt with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. That song, "Is It Me?," plays in The Falcon Theatre's 2011 production of A Catholic Girl's Guide to Losing Your Virginity.
Every year, for the past 10 years, Adryan has received an ASCAP Award for Popular Music, based on numerous cabaret and musical theater performances by cabaret artists and theaters for that year. She holds a master's degree in English with a minor in music theory from the University of Illinois. She is a longtime member of ASCAP, The Dramatists Guild, the Academy for New Musical Theatre (ANMT), the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS), and has served on the Board of The Society of Composers & Lyricists (TheSCL.com), where she had the honor of interviewing, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and many others.