Editing Adam Guettel (section)

==Early life, family, and education ==
[[File:Rodgers.jpg|thumb|right|Adam Guettel is the grandson of composer [[Richard Rodgers]]]] 
Guettel was born on December 16, 1964, to film executive Henry Guettel and writer/composer [[Mary Rodgers]], daughter of famed composer Richard Rodgers, and was raised on the [[Upper West Side]] of [[New York City]]. He performed as a [[boy soprano]] soloist in operas including ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]'' and ''[[The Magic Flute]]'', both at the [[Metropolitan Opera]] and the [[New York City Opera]], and in another production of ''Pelléas'' with the [[Santa Fe Opera]]. He was also slated to play Amahl in the film remake of [[Gian Carlo Menotti]]'s "[[Amahl and the Night Visitors]]". Guettel played bass guitar in rock groups, but felt he wasn't good enough at the instrument, and that even if he was "even a bass solo is not that satisfying. It is like putting a sail on a car."<ref name="comp">{{cite news |last=Green |first=Jesse |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/magazine/a-complicated-gift.html?pagewanted=all |title= A Complicated Gift | work = [[The New York Times]] | date= 2003-07-06 | access-date = 2009-03-24}}</ref> Soon, turning to musical theatre composition, he was mentored by [[Stephen Sondheim]].<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TofC3KD-h8M |title=The Art of Songwriting with Stephen Sondheim and Adam Guettel |date=2020-04-28 |last=Dramatists Guild Foundation |access-date=2024-09-07 |via=YouTube}}</ref> Guettel recalled how as a 14-year-old boy he showed Sondheim his work. Guettel was "crestfallen" since he had come in "sort of all puffed up thinking [he] would be rained with compliments and things", which was not the case since Sondheim had some "very direct things to say". Later, Sondheim wrote and apologized to Guettel for being "not very encouraging" when he was actually trying to be "constructive". Years later, Sondheim would later put Guettel's song "The Riddle Song" from ''[[Floyd Collins (musical)|Floyd Collins]]'' on his list of "songs he wished he'd written".

Guettel is the son of composer, author and [[Juilliard School]] chairman [[Mary Rodgers]], who died on June 26, 2014, and grandson of legendary musical theater composer [[Richard Rodgers]]. His father, Henry Guettel (died October 7, 2013), was a film executive<ref>{{cite news|last=Cohen |first=Steve |url=https://www.playbill.com/article/from-floyd-to-florence-with-saturn-in-between-adam-guettel-keeps-changing-chords-com-101335 |title=From ''Floyd'' to Florence, with ''Saturn'' in Between: Adam Guettel Keeps Changing Chords |website=[[Playbill]] |date=1999-06-08 |access-date=2022-03-15}}</ref> and was the executive director of the [[Theatre Development Fund]].<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/20/theater/tkts-to-begin-experiment-with-2-tier-price-discounts.html |title=TKTS to Begin Experiment With 2-Tier Price Discounts|date=1992-02-20| newspaper=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> When Guettel took up music composition in his mid-teens, he was encouraged by his family.  His mother said that she offered him advice for around a year. "After that, he was so far beyond anything I could ever have dreamed of, I just backed off."<ref name="comp" />  Richard Rodgers, who died when Guettel was 15, overheard an early composition, said he liked it, and asked him to play it louder.  Guettel has qualified the compliment, noting that "He was literally on his deathbed on the other side of the living-room wall."<ref name = "comp"/> In his high school and collegiate years and into his early twenties, Guettel worked as a rock and jazz musician, singing and playing bass, before realizing "that writing for character and telling stories through music was something that I really loved to do, and that allowed me to express love".<ref>{{cite news |last=DeFoe |first=Ryan |url = http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/boston/boston5.html |title=An Interview with Adam Guettel |website = Talkin' Broadway |date=2001-02-12 |access-date= 2009-03-25}}</ref>

Guettel attended [[Phillips Exeter Academy]], School Year Abroad (SYA France) and [[Interlochen Center for the Arts]]. He attended Yale University, where he met frequent collaborator [[Tina Landau]]. Guettel wrote a song for a revue Landau was directing, the first of many collaborations between the pair.<ref name="latimes.com">{{Cite web |title= Unearthing One Man&#x27;s Purgatory : The creators behind &#x27;Floyd Collins&#x27; tap into the dark side of American musicals for the tale of a man buried alive and the ensuing media circus. - Los Angeles Times|url= https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-14-ca-7890-story.html}}</ref> While at Yale, Guettel took time off from school to work as [[John Mauceri]]'s assistant and the DX7 consultant on the broadway musical ''[[Song and Dance]].''