​Robert John Ford is an award-winning playwright, composer, lyricist, and theatre producer.  His stage productions, seen by more than 75,000 people throughout the world, include: CAUCUS! THE MUSICAL (featured by the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, the CBS Morning Show, and The ABC Evening News, among others); ADORE US! LINE (featured by the New Yorker and winner of Broadway World's Regional Best of the Decade Award); THE WORLD'S LARGEST ALUMINUM FOIL BALL ("Must See" designation by the St. Paul Pioneer Press); SLEEPING DOGS (winner of the Ashland New Play Festival, the Iowa Playwrights Workshop competition, and the Vittum Award); MY DINNER WITH ANDREW ("Must See" designation by the St. Paul Pioneer Press); and his Iowa-themed musicals SIX-ON-SIX, CYCLEPATHS, CY-HAWK STORY, and UTOPIA - THE IOWA MUSICAL REVUE (winner of the Cloris Leachman Award).​  His songs have been performed at Carnegie Hall and in cabaret venues by notable Broadway performers, including Jeremy Jordan and Laura Benanti.  

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A native of Iowa, RJF is based in both Des Moines, where he is an Iowa Arts Council Fellow and the founder of RJFcreative, and New York, where he currently serves as the Company Manager for Hudson Valley Shakespeare and has been a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop since 2012. 

 

In 2026, his two newest musicals - THE WILLING (in collaboration with composer/lyricist Amy Engelhardt) and ROLF(E) - will have workshop productions in Duluth and New York respectively.  He also continues to develop several other projects, including TRICE (musical) and THE LAST RIDE (novel).