Biography
Willie Reale is an American writer and lyricist. He grew up in Park Ridge, New Jersey. In 1981 he founded the 52nd Street Project, a theatre organisation for children, and served as its artistic director for eighteen years; he received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994 for this work.
Reale has written for television series including Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), Damages (2007), Billions (2016), Blue Bloods (2010) and The Sinner (2017). He was a writer and producer on the PBS series The Electric Company, for which he won three Emmy awards. With his brother Robert Reale he wrote the book and lyrics for the musical A Year With Frog and Toad, which received two Tony Award nominations. He received an Academy Award nomination for his lyrics for the 2006 film Dreamgirls.
