Welcome to my website! My name is Colby Thompson, I am a (technically) award-winning composer, lyricist, and playwright!
Some of my Songs (Sung by Fabulous Singers)
“Family” from Chocolatier (Sung by Georgia VanRy & Neil Devlin with Tristan Strasser on piano)
“Let Me Love You” – Winner of the Showpeople Songwriting Showdown Season 1 (lyrics co-written by Benji McClary-Smith, sung by Anthara Shivkumar, Ali Ragazzini, Gil Torres, & Brandon Santos with Miles Messier & Travis Lavigne on keyboard, Amanda Morrill on drums, C Descourtress on guitar, & Max Currie on bass)
“My Own Luck” from An Outrageous Outcome (Sung by Annika Stenstedt with Tristan Strasser on Piano)
“Eleanor on the Edge” from This Side of Paradise (Sung by Nina Osso with Tristan Strasser on Piano)
Some of my Shows
Yes, Virginia (in progress)
In this completely-fictionalized musical about the writing of the famous “Yes, Virginia” letter, Francis Pharcellus Church, a cynical reporter for The Sun, finds something to care about when he meets a woman who is the latest victim in a series of potentially-illegal evictions from a tenement house.
Chocolatier
A musical biodrama depicting the life of Milton S. Hershey, the founder of the Hershey Company, from his beginnings as a teenage candy peddler to confectionary tycoon. (A developmental reading was held at Ripley-Grier Studios in March 2025.) Watch it here!
An Outrageous Outcome
A musical revue that examines the concept of luck and what it even means. It follows a series of events that all deal with some kind of luck or happenstance. Some of them are very obviously extraordinary, others are more subjective, and a few are outright bizarre. (Premiered at the Green Room 42 in November 2023. To be produced as part of the New York Theater Festival in July 2025.) Watch it here!
This Side of Paradise
Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, This Side of Paradise follows the self-absorbed and conceited son of a wealthy family travels through the Jazz Age in search of truth in life, love, and literature. (A developmental reading was held at the Producers Club in August 2022.) Watch it here!