Two musicals by lyricist Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty – Anastasia and Once on This Island – are opening in Australia. Jo Litson chats with the Broadway duo, who also wrote the award-winning Ragtime.

A production shot from the US tour of Anastasia. Photo © Roy Beusker

Had Stephen Flaherty not plucked up the courage to ask Lynn Ahrens if she would write a song with him, they might never have become one of Broadway’s powerhouse songwriting duos. Talk about sliding doors.

It was 1982. Ahrens and Flaherty had both enrolled in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York – a two-year educational program for would-be composers and lyricists, keen to develop a musical.

“Lynn was working solely as a lyricist. I had come there as...