American Songwriter highlights three musicians who stepped beyond recording careers to write acclaimed stage musicals, showing how their songwriting talents translated successfully to theatre. The piece looks at Sara Bareilles, Cyndi Lauper and Pete Townshend, each of whom adapted existing material—a film, a film again, and their own concept album—into stage productions that won over…

Several well-known singer-songwriters have extended their careers beyond recorded music by writing scores for stage musicals, adapting films, albums or original stories into full theatrical productions. This showcases their versatility as composers and storytellers, with the resulting shows often achieving lasting popularity and critical acclaim in their own right, sometimes eclipsing the source material. Sara…