23 and You and You and Me

Book and lyrics by Dorie Clark; Music by Marie Incontrera

“23 and You and You and Me” is a paternity comedy, based on the true story of lyricist and librettist Dorie Clark discovering in January 2020 that her father was not, in fact, her father. The show explores, with humor and pathos, the nature of family secrets – and what self-identity looks like when everything has been peeled away.

Dorie Clark is a lyricist in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop, and a winner (with Marie Incontrera) of second place in the 2021 NMI Search for New Musicals for Absolute Zero. She is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, a producer of a multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz album, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. 

Absolute Zero received a York Theatre Company staged reading in spring 2023, a Dallas staged reading in 2022 (as the result of winning a MusicalWriters.com pitch competition), and was a 2023 semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference. The show was featured as part of the New York Theatre Barn New Works Series in October 2023 and has received media coverage in Forbes and the Harvard Business Review. Clark has participated in developmental opportunities with Prospect Theater Company, Apples and Oranges Arts’ THEatre ACCELERATOR and the (late) New York Musical Festival’s songwriting workshop. Her work has been performed at venues including Symphony Space and Joe’s Pub in New York City.

Marie Incontrera is a musical theater and opera composer; music director and conductor; and screenwriter living in Manhattan, New York. Her award-winning chamber opera, Albert: Bound or Unbound, written with librettist Royce Vavrek, premiered at Brooklyn Academy of Music New Wave Festival and was hailed by the New York Times for its “deftly woven jazz and gospel elements.” Her operatic works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, and across the United States.

Marie has served as a music director and pianist for three works with Mabou Mines, in collaboration with late director Lee Breuer. She has also music directed several other opera, musical theater, and hybrid works, including Fred Ho’s Sweet Science Suite, Marat Sade with the TWEED Theatre Company featuring Edgar Oliver, Hatuey at Sundance Labs, and 8 Songs for a Drag Queen at Carnegie Hall. 

Marie’s screen works include Two Anxious Bisexuals, and A Very Queer Holiday, a holiday special. Both were written with Dianne Gebauer and Megan A Zebrowski. Two Anxious Bisexuals has been a winner of Best Short Script at Film Invasion LA, Audience Choice at Cannes Short Film Festival, and others. A Very Queer Holiday was a winner at LGBTQ Unvordered International Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, and others. A Very Queer Holiday is a participant in the Sundance Collab Film Producing: Core Elements intensive.

Marie is a graduate of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Intensive, taught by Patrick Cook and Frederick Freyer. Her first collaboration with book writer and lyricist Dorie Clark, Absolute Zero, was a part of the Apples and Oranges THEatre ACCELERATOR development intensive in Spring 2021. Absolute Zero was an O’Neill New Musical Theater Conference Semi-Finalist in 2023, the Second Prize winner of NMI’s Search for New Musicals in 2022, and the winner of the Spring 2022 Musicalwriters.com Pitch Night. Absolute Zero received a 29-hour reading from The York Theatre off-Broadway in April 2023, and will be showcased on the New York Theater Barn New Works Series in Fall of 2023.

Dorie and Marie were in the Top 25 finalists for the 2023-2024 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship. They were commissioned by the Prospect Theater Lab for the first ten-minutes of their second show, 23 and You and You and Me, which premiered in November 2021 at Symphony Space. Her Virtual Reality musical, Parallel University, written with David Quang Pham and Malina Detcheva-Rossa, was developed with the Across A Crowded Room program at Lincoln Center Library. She received her Masters Degree in Music Composition from Brooklyn College, where she studied with Tania Leon. She studied privately with jazz composer Fred Ho.

By day, Marie owns a social media and digital marketing agency.