A longtime vocal coach, stage director, and actor, Carlo Thomas maintains a Sarasota, Florida, studio. Carlo Thomas is currently engaged in creating the show Off His Trolley, which dramatizes his personal experiences working with composers Timothy Gray and Hugh Martin.
A respected lyricist, pianist, and arranger, Hugh Martin grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and pursued a career as a classical musician before being inspired in college by George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” to create popular music. Martin initially made his name as a musical arranger and later began composing for Broadway productions in the early 1940s with Best Foot Forward. Martin’s most famous songs were composed for Meet Me in St. Louis, a 1944 MGM musical, and included “The Trolley Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Originally sung by Judy Garland, the latter composition is now firmly ensconced as a holiday standard. In 1964 Martin collaborated with Timothy Gray on High Spirits, and his last major production was a 1989 version of Meet Me in St. Louis, for which he wrote several new songs. Hugh Martin passed away in 2011 at the age of 96.
Carlo Thomas 