Willem Oosthuysen is an award-winning composer, orchestrator, music director, and music educator based in New York. His musicals include #MARS (with Laura Kleinbaum, NYFA, Manhattan Musical Theatre Lab), Prodigy (CCU, NYU, Two Rivers Theatre Company, Indiana University, and finalist for the Yale Institute of Music Theater Conference), Two Bugs Are Better Than One (New York City’s Children’s Theater, Walnut Street Theatre), Cinderella (commissioned/produced by Spotlight Youth Theater), and To Have And To Hold (Prospect Theater Company, Barrington Stage, Denver Fringe), all with Jenny Stafford.
His short operas include Eternal Rest (NYU and American Opera Projects), The Watering Hole (NYU), both with a libretto by Tristen Moseley, as well as Fairy Tale Suite - Three Short Operas: A Visit to Baba Yaga, Tin Heart, Tinsel Rose, & The Winter Giant (libretto by Chandra McClelland, commissioned by Badlands Opera Project).
Willem’s work has been featured at Lincoln Center, Joe’s Pub, The BMI Workshop Spotlight, 54 Below, Prospect Theater, and numerous other NYC venues. He’s been an artist in residence at Goodspeed, CAP21, Berkshires Musical Theatre Lab, and THEatre Accelerator (Apples and Oranges Studios). He holds an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (Tisch School of the Arts), completed his Advanced Certification in Music Education at Brooklyn College, and is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop, ASCAP (Plus Award winner 2018) and the Dramatists Guild.
Some of his recent orchestrations include the operetta By Georges! A Day In The Life of the Legendary Chevalier de Saint-Georges (commissioned and produced by Lamplighters Music Theater), and the musical, Le Comte Noir - A New Musical About the Real Count of Monte Cristo (produced by Manhattan School of Music), both with music and lyrics by Charles Vincent Burwell and James D. Sasser.
He is a music teacher at Dr. Sun Yat Sen M.S. 131 Middle School in Manhattan, and has been a music director and teacher at the Queens College Musical Theater Summer Camp, Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, and Nightingale-Bamford School. Willem has also been a teaching artist with the Disney Theatrical Group, TADA! Youth Theater, and the New York Pops.
Willem is the pianist, and a contributing composer/arranger for the New York based band, Em & the Fates. Their EP and several singles are all available to stream/buy on iTunes, Spotify, etc. Performance venues include Rockwood Music Hall, Bowery Electric, Mercury Lounge, and The Bitter End.