Miriam Raiken-Kolb is a composer/lyricist/playwright, actress, pianist and teacher. A Little Princess was her favorite book growing up. After seeing the Shirley Temple movie on television as an adult, she felt immediately inspired to set this gem of a story to music. In 2005, Raiken-Kolb collaborated with playwright Elizabeth Ellor to begin work on their musical adaptation of the story which is entitled Sara Crewe. Sara Crewe premiered in 2007 at the Needham Community Theatre, Inc. and went on to receive another successful production at the Blackwell Theatre in Atlanta. Other works include a one-act musical play entitled I Dwell in Possibility, which tells the story of how Emily Dickinson's poems came to be published; a musical version of Alice Through the Looking Glass; and a musical adaptation of The Secret Garden, which received its premier performance in 2002 by the Somerville Summer Theatre Project. Raiken-Kolb is currently collaborating with New England playwright Geralyn Horton on a new musical based on the novel Precious Bane by Mary Webb. They are developing the work under the auspices of NOMTI (New Opera Musical Theatre Initiative) in Boston, where they both reside.
