Bio

 

Bob with his great grandmother, 1969.

Bob Johnson has written for The New Jersey Star Ledger, The Spectator magazine (Raleigh, North Carolina), The New York Blade and The Washington Blade.  More recently, he has written theatre reviews and a sporadic column, “Bitten by a Zebra,” for the New York Resident.

His photography has been published in The New York Times, Playbill.com, Newsday, TimeOut/NY, BroadwaySpace.com, BroadwayWorld.com, The Enjoyment of Theatre (Fourth Edition), How to Read a Church (HiddenSpring Press), Cantatas Vol 15: New York (CD by John Eliot Gardiner), and one of his photos was featured on ABC’s The View. 

Honors and awards include being named a winner of the International Association of Business Communicators Call for Research Papers, the Jim Henson Award for Projects Related to Puppetry, an artistic achievement citation from the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival and New York Press’s “Best Straight-Faced Cover Story Interview with Joan Rivers” (2003 Best of New York City issue).
 
He has written plays that have been produced in nine states (maybe more). One of his musicals (co-author/book & lyrics), Oedipus! A New Musical Comedy, is published by Baker’s Plays. He also wrote the dialogue to an opera based on the O.J. Simpson trial with composer Anthony Newman.
 
Johnson has had “work encounters” with Martin Short, Judy Shepard, Starr Jones, Chita Rivera, Michael Mayer, Mikhail Barishnakov, Paul Taylor, F. Murray Abraham, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Faye Dunaway, Rob Marshall, Madam Chiang Kai-shek (posthumous), Chubby Checker (who gave him beef jerky) and Jessye Norman (who tried to sell him Girl Scout cookies).
 
In addition to all of the above, he taught playwriting for the Honors Program at the University of Maryland, has been the official photographer for the National Whistler’s Convention, was an improvisational comedy performer and was the artistic director of a children’s theatre.