Agent: Mike Leahy
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“Twisted, dark, sophisticated, schleppy and sad all at once.” –NPR’s Weekend Edition
“The hepcat stylings of Ethan Lipton and his jazz combo give Lipton’s meticulously funny, often wise “We Are Your Robots” … a delightful throwback air.” – The New Yorker
“Sly, smart as heck, and somehow both extremely tender and laugh-out-loud funny, Lipton…took us all the way to the edge of the abyss, then offered a gentle hand to bring us back again…Both the band’s charming tunes and Lipton’s clever lyrics conjured up a little Tom Waits here, a little The Might Be Giants there…and Randy Newman over there.” — New York Magazine
The cheekily named Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra is a quartet that has been playing a singular brand of jazz/folk/alternative nosh with a chewy singer-songwriter center for almost two decades. With melancholy wit and a cockeyed worldview, Lipton and bandmates Eben Levy (guitar), Ian Riggs (bass), and Vito Dieterle (sax) deliver original songs steeped in mixed-message sincerity and soul.
The quartet’s theatrical productions include the musicals WE ARE YOUR ROBOTS at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center (TFANA/ Rattlestick) and NO PLACE TO GO (Obie Award) and THE OUTER SPACE (Lortel nom.), both produced by the Public in Joe’s Pub, all directed by Leigh Silverman. Over 20 years the band has released five studio albums, including 2024’s DID YOU DO THE THING WE TALKED ABOUT? and appeared on THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL. In addition to playing all over NYC, the band has performed at venues including SF Jazz, Celebrate Brooklyn, MASS MoCa, Pitchfork Paris, Theatre de la Ville, the Gate (London), the Troubadour (LA), and most recently at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall accompanied by a 15-piece orchestra and choir.
Lipton is the 2023 Kleban Prize winner for most promising American librettist and a 2023 Creative Capital Grantee. He’s been a Guggenheim Fellow, an Alpert Prize Fellow at MacDowell, and a Playwrights Realm Page One Fellow. Ethan has received grants and commissions from Lincoln Center, the Public Theater, Media Arts Exploration, MTC, the Civilians, NYFA, Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, True Love, Barrington Stage, the NY Public Library and the Onassis Foundation. His musical THE SEAT OF OUR PANTS, an authorized adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, will have its world premiere at the Public in fall 2025.
