Joe Masteroff
Joe Masteroff (December 11, 1919 – September 28, 2018) was an American playwright and librettist. He was born in Philadelphia to Jewish parents, Louis Masteroff from Korsun (now in Ukraine) and Rose Pogost from Kishinev (now Moldova). He graduated from Temple University, served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, and studied with the American Theatre Wing from 1949 to 1951. He began his career as an actor and made his Broadway debut in The Prescott Proposals (1953). His first full-length play, The Warm Peninsula, opened on Broadway in January 1959 at the Hayes Theater.
In 1963, Masteroff wrote the book for the musical She Loves Me, which earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Author of a Musical. The show ran for 301 performances. Three years later, Hal Prince took over the rights to I Am a Camera and The Berlin Stories and hired Masteroff to write the book for a new musical with music and lyrics by Kander and Ebb. That musical, Cabaret, opened on Broadway in November 1966, ran for 1,165 performances, and won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Masteroff’s next Broadway project, 70, Girls, 70, opened in April 1971 but was not as successful. He also wrote the libretto for an operatic adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. Later works include writing the book and lyrics for the Off-Broadway musical Six Wives (1992) and Paramour (based on Jean Anouilh’s The Waltz of the Toreadors) at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego (1998).
Joe Masteroff passed away in 2018, leaving a lasting impact on American musical theater.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:33 (CET).