Daniel S. Acquisto (music) & Sammy Buck (book and lyrics)
With productions on five continents, Sammy and Dan, collectively known as “Bucquisto,” are the authors of seven musicals, most notably Like You Like It, and the 2012 winner of the Off Broadway Alliance Best Family Show, Stinkykids® The Musical. They are also recipients of the 2012 MAC Dottie Burman Award and a 2007 Talking Broadway Summer Theatre Festival citation for Outstanding New Musical for their show The Seven-Year B*tch.
Like You Like It has garnered them The National Music Theater Network and The Theater for the American Musicals’ inaugural New Voices Prize, the Global Search for New Musicals, and Outstanding Production of a Musical at the 2009 NY Innovative Theatre Awards (the Tony® for Off-Off-Broadway) for the 2008 The Gallery Players producton. Sammy and Dan developed Like You Like It at the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop and the Dramatists Guild Foundation’s Jonathan Larson Musical Theatre Fellowship Program, working under the invaluable tutelage of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and mentors David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr.
“Bucquisto” songs have been performed at 54 Below, Broadway Bound at Merkin Hall, The Duplex, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, the N.E.O. Benefit at the York Theatre, and NAMT/ASCAP’s “In The Wings” at the NAMT Festival. Their song “Be With Me” is featured on the N.E.O. at the York Theatre CD, performed by Matt Cavenaugh, and was sung by Anthony Rapp at The New Globe’s star-studded Variations on Shakespeare benefit.
Vital Theatre commissioned and produced StinkyKids, as well as Sammy & Dan’s other family-friendly musicals, The Frog and the Witch and Matthew Takes Mannahatta (bookwriter Aurin Squire), and the New York Musical Theatre Festival commissioned and produced their dance musical, Andy Warhol Was Right.
…And Then I Wrote a Song About It (bookwriter Eric Weinberger), their solo show written for multitalented performer Nick Cearley and directed by Like You Like It director Igor Goldin, has played at Luna Stage and Diversionary Theatre.
Individually, Sammy is the creator of Structure! The Musical: Everything You Need to Know About Musicals You Can Learn From Star Wars. As bookwriter/co-lyricist of Small Town Story (NY Theatre Barn commission with composer/lyricist Brandon James Gwinn, he was awarded a NAMT Writers Residency Grant and was a finalist for the Richard Rodgers Award. Other credits include lyrics for The Doll Maker’s Gift (Rose Theater), the book for Leonard Bernstein’s Cast Party (American Airlines Theatre/Roundabout), the movie Red Hook (Phase 4 Films), a circus, the one-actor play Barry The Hatchet (All Out Arts) and the first NYMF dance show, Common Grounds (composer Doug Katsaros). He received his BFA in Filmic Writing from USC. An Emmy winner for his work with TVLAND.COM, Sammy has been a script reader for clients including Sony Pictures and AMPAS, and has mentored for the Young Playwrights Festival in Santa Barbara. He is a member of BMI and The Dramatists Guild, Inc. sammybuck.com
Daniel (Class of ’88) received his MM in Composition (acoustic and electronic) from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He has been commissioned to write pieces for theatre (Wild About Harry – NYMF 2008, Dancing in the Dark, Antigone: The Rock Musical – Studio Arena Theatre, Tada!, over a dozen children’s musicals for Merkin Concert Hall, Indiana State Fair), incidental theatre music Subjective Theatre Company, All Out Arts Festival), as well as non-theatrical commissions (United States Air Force Clarinet Quartet, U. of Cincinnati Men’s Chorus [Shawnee Press, publisher], U. of Cincinnati News Media Department). He also participated writing ten-minute musicals for the ATrainMusicals, Raw Impressions, and FUSE concert theatre group. He has scored three film shorts (including Swept), a full-length eature film Fade to White, and participated in the NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop. Daniel is also a music director, percussionist, arranger, and orchestrator. Daniel thanks his friends and family for their support and God for everything else. Member of ASCAP.