Composer of Children’s Theatre Hockey Musical Dies

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -The composer of a new hockey musical at the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis has died days before the show opens.

Michael Friedman, an Obie-winning composer and lyricist known for the musicals ``Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson'' and ``Love's Labour's Lost,'' died Saturday of HIV/AIDS complications in New York, where he lived. He was 41.

Friedman wrote the music and lyrics for ``The Abominables,'' a hockey-themed show that was commissioned by the Children's Theatre in 2011. The show opens Friday.
Children's Theatre artistic director Peter Brosius calls Friedman ``an extraordinary artist and an incredible human being.''

Friedman's best-known work is the rock musical ``Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson'' which imagines the seventh president as an emo rock star.

Children's Theatre will dedicate the run of ``Abominables'' to Friedman.