About Creighton
CREIGHTON IRONS creates musicals in mountains and backyards, in schools and pools, and in theaters and stages around the world. He works every day to bring the collaborative spirit of music and theater into the rest of life and to celebrate the beauty, joy, and passion that the performing arts can unlock.
Creighton grew up in the woods of Chapel Hill, NC. Summer excursions to the blue ridge mountains and the rivers of eastern NC grew his love of nature and community. A Morehead scholarship at UNC facilitated trips to Jamaica, South Africa, Russia, and around the American South that helped grow his love of music and expanded his understanding of community. Creighton moved to NYC after school to delve deeper musical theater writing at NYU-Tisch. After earning his MFA, he spent the next decade creating new works and leading music programs in schools around New York and in Cambridge, San Francisco, and more.
His musicals FACTORY GIRLS, THE MOON AND THE SEA, SOUL NOTES, STAYING WILD, LOST LETTERS, and HOMEFRONT have been on stage at ACT in San Francisco, Amuse in Tokyo, Goodspeed Musicals, NAMT’s Festival of New Musicals, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Boston Conservatory, Pace University, and more. His songs have been performed in NYC’s favorite cabarets, including 54 Below, Birdland Jazz, The Cutting Room, Lincoln Center, and Joe’s Pub. He is an alum of the Johnny Mercer Colony and was named one of Buzzfeed’s “23 Composer/Lyricists Who Prove You Should Give Musical Theatre Another Shot.” He regularly performs backup to his wife, the brilliant singer-songwriter Dawn Landes; the two of them also created a musical, BOOMTOWN, celebrating their neighborhood in north of Nashville, TN.
As a teaching artist (with Lincoln Center Theater, American Conservatory Theater, The Roundabout Theatre, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, and others), Irons has helped thousands of students find their voices and create hundreds of original songs. He created choral programs focusing on empowerment through music in The Bronx (SongCorps), Nashville (Rise Up Singing), and North Carolina, where he currently heads the music program at Woods Charter School. Creighton is the Artistic Director of Woodshed Arts, a collective supporting new performance works in north Chatham county. He lives with his wife and children on the southern outskirts of Chapel Hill.
