Celeste Makoff is a Japanese-Jewish composer, playwright, orchestrator, and digital forensics analyst based in New York City. Celeste and Director Hunter Bird co-developed the musical CRASHLIGHT — a show about the power of music as a tool of political control. Crashlight is currently on track to being staged in 2023 alongside Forbes 30 Under 30 Music Supervisor Macy Schmidt and Tony Award Winning Producer Nick Demos.
*In 2016, Celeste produced a workshop production of the very first version of Crashlight and has since rewritten the show entirely - including 25 brand new fully orchestrated songs.*
Visit the CRASHLIGHT WEBSITE to hear the full soundtrack.
CRASHLIGHT was a two-time finalist in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals (2023 and 2024,) and was a semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theater Conference in 2022. It also received an honorable mention from the Relentless Award in 2022.
In February 2023, the music of CRASHLIGHT debuted in a sneak-peek industry concert at Broadway Plus in midtown, featuring performances from Broadway's Mykal Kilgore, Lianah Sta. Ana, and Kerstin Anderson. The event was covered by Playbill, Broadway World, and Time Square Chronicles.
Celeste attended Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with high honors in the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing with a minor in Documentary Film. During her sophomore year, she founded Peach Pie Productions, a New York City based theatre production / media company. Under her direction, the company has produced shows in New York City and San Francisco. In 2017, she was lead producer for a Requiem written by the renowned Eric Lewis who was the original first chair violinist of the Manhattan String Quartet.
Celeste trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in classical guitar and music theory and studied at Interlochen Arts Academy for creative writing and classical guitar.
In addition to her artistic work, Celeste is also an executive in the digital forensics and e-discovery field, where she applies her analytical expertise in document verification and data recovery.
Listen on SoundCloud
Four new demos for the new 2023 version of Crashlight were just released!
Contact
All inquiries can be directed to Lauren at: Crashlightrsvp@gmail.com