Composer & Co-Lyricist

Dr. Daniel Seidman is a licensed clinical psychologist practicing in New York City.

Dan started playing in a band at the age of 12 at the Cafe Wha in Greenwich Village. At the age of 15, he toured the U.S. and Canada playing Hammond organ for Chubby Checker. He completed a year as a composition major at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1972-1973, and a B.A. in History from SUNY Binghamton. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1988, and subsequently joined the faculty at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) where he taught, practiced psychology, and did research for 30 years. He retired from Columbia in June of 2018.

Fifth Avenue the musical originally grew out of Dan’s combined interest in jazz and history. Discussions with a history professor Albert Fried about the immigrant experiences of the Irish, Jews, Italians and in more contemporary times, Blacks, Hispanics and the Chinese provided insight into the “dark side” of the American dream and its “underworld culture”. This is the story Fried tells in his book “The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America” (Columbia University Press). After college, Dan began composing the music for "Fifth Avenue" while employed by the Shubert Organization in New York City. He met Susan Crawford, who wrote the book and co-wrote the lyrics for Fifth Avenue, in 1979. They were married in 1984 and are now the proud parents of two grown sons.

Dan is excited to rediscover the possibilities of "Fifth Avenue.” In particular, the theme of ambition and upward mobility in pursuit of the American dream and its relationship with the crooked ladder of success seems as timely as ever.

Book Writer and Co-Lyricist

My theater life began at 13 in my hometown's Shakespeare Festival. It evolved into much acting from then into my 30's. It soon overlapped with an interest in playwriting, and I finished my first play at 24. Eventually writing overcame acting for me. For that I studied with Arthur Kopit and John Guare; lyric writing at the ASCAP workshop, and with Sheila Davis, and Dorothy Fields. Around that time I co-developed the continuity for Ned Sherrin for “Only In America” songs by Leiber and Stoller. It ran at the Roundhouse in London, and was a distant antecedent to what became “Smoky Joe’s Cafe.”

“Dollars to Doughnuts, a Comedy for the 99%” was my master’s thesis in the CCNY Graduate Writing Program where I studied with Arthur Kopit. It was a finalist in the O’Neill Playwriting Conference the year it was finished (under the title "Lotto"). For the summer 2022 season, it was selected by Theatre for the New City’s “Dream Up” Festival where it was workshopped and is now being submitted for production. My one-act "Place Settings" was selected for the Chain Theatre's 2023 Winter One-Act Festival, and is also available for production.

"Fifth Avenue, A Jazz Musical Comedy" had a table reading in June 2023, and is now being prepared for production at Don't Tell Mama in January-February 2024.