Durra Leung (Chinese: 柯杜華) is a multilingual writer and composer for musical theatre and opera. His original musical works have been performed at NYC concert venues including 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, and Symphony Space, once in the Virginia state, and have been heard on the radio in China. He has provided new Cantonese lyrics and translations for a revised version of Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002 Tony Award for Best Musical), most recently produced by Japan’s Toho Company in 2024. Durra also composes scores for dance pieces and films including “Your Smile” (dir. Haochen Yang) which entered the Cannes Film Festival in 2020.
As a freelance theatre producer, Durra has worked for The Play Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and PROTOTYPE Festival, after creating and producing Tin Pan Alley 2 Concert Series, a bimonthly celebration of emerging musical theatre writers for over two years.
Durra is an alum of NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program as a composer, a current member of BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop as a librettist, a two-time Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship Finalist, and a two-time Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant recipient (for Durra Leung’s Lullabies for Motherf*ckers Vol.1 and Vol.2, two original full-length musicals that are parts of a multiverse trilogy). Moreover, Durra has been awarded multiple fully-subsidized artist residencies in Upstate New York, Maine, and Virginia.
Born and raised in Guangzhou, China, he now calls NYC home.
Photo by Mengwen Cao, Courtesy of A4