Paul is the author and composer of 16 original stage musicals that have been presented in professional productions around the world.  As well as his musical adaptations of famous tales such as Hansel & Grettel, The Elves And The Shoemaker, Rumpelstiltskin, Red - the Red Riding Hood Musical, Pinocchio (named Best Musical 2003 by national newspaper The Sunday Life), Alice The Musical (nominated as Best Drama, 1999 Belfast Arts Awards), and The Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast, Paul has also written the acclaimed musicals McCool (which in 2006 won a much coveted place as a UK entry to the NAMT’s Festival of New Musicals in New York), Molly Wobbly’s Tit Factory (which was short-listed for Eden Court Theatre’s Highland Quest for a New Musical 2006), and Macbeth The Musical.

In addition to his musical theatre work Paul has written many original scores and soundtracks for professional theatre productions, including; The Thief (Irish Tour), The Colleen Bawn (Irish Tour), The Well of the Saints & The End of the Beginning (Irish Tour), and The Playboy of the Western World (Irish Tour and Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke) all for Northern Ireland’s oldest independent theatre producer Big Telly Theatre Company; Puppet Magic (Irish Tour), Buster (Ireland Tour and Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh), A Fairy’s Tale (Irish Tour) and The Magic Hat (Ireland and Asia Tour) all for Cahoots NI; The Little Wee Martian (Irish Tour), Dome Sweet Dome (Irish Tour), Smelly Won’t Behave! (Irish Tour) and Flaming Fables (Irish Tour) all for Northern Ireland’s theatre-in-education company Replay Productions; The Emperor’s New Clothes for the Castle Theatre Northamptonshire; and Marching On and A Whistle In The Dark for the Lyric Theatre Belfast.  Other work includes original scores for the 2005 Belfast Lord Mayor’s Parade, the 2006 Belfast City Hall Centenary Exhibition, and the score Titanic: Song of The Hammers which formed part of a major new exhibition in Belfast at the construction site of RMS Titanic.

As a theatre director Paul has worked for many of Ireland’s leading theatre producers, and his production of his own musical Pinocchio for the Lyric Theatre Belfast was nominated as Best Production for Children and Young People at the 2007 TMA Theatre Awards.  Paul has also had the distinction of having two of his productions running simultaneously at major Dublin theatres (Alice The Musical  and Pinocchio in 2005) and in 2007 Paul’s production of Pinocchio ran in Belfast and Dublin theatres concurrently.  As a playwright his works include Murder Most Probably and All Wired Up (named Best New Play, 1992 Greer Garson Theatre Award) both of which have toured Ireland and the UK.

Internationally Paul is best known as the composer, co-director, and co-creator (with Zoë Seaton) of the acclaimed water spectaculars The Little Mermaid and Sinbad.  The Little Mermaid began touring in 2005 and proved so successful that it was still touring over a year and a half later, playing to nearly 30,000 people across Ireland, the UK, Taiwan, Serbia, and Denmark.  Sinbad premiered in Ireland and the UK in 2008 just as Paul’s musical Hansel & Grettel received its USA premiere at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  In 2008 Paul also orchestrated the record-breaking production of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz at Actors’ Playhouse at The Miracle Theatre in Miami.

Now in its eleventh year of continuous professional production, Alice The Musical finally received its English premiere at Northamptonshire’s Castle Theatre in December 2008.  The show enjoyed its USA premiere from January - April 2009 in an acclaimed production at Actors’ Playhouse in Miami which is set to be revived by public demand for a run in the fall.

Paul is currently writing his seventeenth original stage musical The Haunting of Helena Blunden which will tour across Ireland in 2010, and prior to that will musically direct the Lyric Theatre Belfast’s new production of The Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast which opens from 4th December 2009.  Paul is also musical director of Greenshoot Productions’ hit play The Chronicles of Long Kesh, written by Martin Lynch, which has now toured Ireland twice in 2009 and is musical director and composer of GBL Productions’ much anticipated twenty-fifth anniversary production of the acclaimed play Lay Up Your Ends (written by Martin Lynch and Charabanc Theatre Company) which stars Marie Jones, is directed by Ian McElhinney, and opens at Belfast Grand Opera House in August.

In 2010 Paul will once again appear across the UK and Ireland in the hit stage production of Spike Milligan’s comic masterpiece Puckoon produced by Big Telly Theatre Company, which he co-devised and for which he also provided music and songs.

Paul Boyd is a Professional Writer Associate of Mercury Musical Developments in London.