Photo by Kathryn Hayden

About Me

Sonya Hayden (she/her) is a composer, lyricist, and playwright originally from Virginia, now based in New York. Her musicals and plays have appeared at local and international venues, including the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, Edinburgh International Festival, Traverse Theatre, The Duplex, Village Pub Theatre Leith, Merlin Theatre Frome, Art House Productions, and Princeton University. She is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop, the Dramatists Guild, and ASCAP, as well as Maestra’s mentorship program, where she is being mentored by Broadway Music Director Mary-Mitchell Campbell.  As a composer, her song “Snow One Else for Me” was recently selected for a studio recording on Playdate Theatre’s 2020 Holiday EP, and as a lyricist, her song “I’m Here” was featured in Empower Her Voice’s October 2020 evening of new work.  She was previously a member of The Workshop Theatre’s selective writers’ intensive, where she developed her play HERR DENTIST; the Princeton University Triangle Club Writers Workshop (Milton Lyon Award for Outstanding Writing) for which she contributed music and lyrics for three full-length musicals; and Traverse Theatre Young Writers and the Village Pub Theatre Writers Collective in Scotland. MSc Playwriting with Distinction, University of Edinburgh; A.B. Music, Princeton University. sonyahayden.com