…wait, who?

Kate Leonard is a writer based in New York.

In the musical theatre world, Kate is a lyricist, librettist, and Starmites apologist. Recent projects include Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical; For You, Paige: The TikTok Musical (are we sensing a theme?); Breathe; Dot and the Kangaroo JR; and Fashion Show, a forthcoming original musical comedy developed in part at the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. Kate was a 2022 Kleban Prize and Fred Ebb Award finalist and is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Maestra, and the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop and Librettists Workshop.

In a past life, Kate was a television script coordinator for series including House of Cards and The Looming Tower. She’s copy edited four bestselling books and many plays, screenplays, and pilots. These days, she keeps the grammar nitpicking to her own emails (mostly) but continues to consult on writing across mediums.

Kate “did comedy” for many years, which is actually how they say that. Her sketches have been produced at UCB Theatre, The PIT, The Tank, and the too-aptly named Reckless Theatre (RIP). She has improvised at dozens of theaters and festivals around the world, including Improfest Sweden and the Del Close Marathon, and hosted a monthly show with her comedy improv team Duran Duran Duran in The Before Times. 

Kate graduated from Wellesley College magna cum laude (that’s Latin for “suck-up”). She can often be found in her hometown of Rochester, New York, playing trivia games with her parents.