[4] This early job would serve Flaherty well later in life when he had the opportunity to compose the score for the Broadway musical Ragtime.
[2][5] He also studied Musical Theater in the graduate program at New York University during this time, where his teachers included Richard Maltby, Jr. and Arthur Laurents, among others.
[citation needed] The first Ahrens and Flaherty collaboration that was produced was a one-act children's show, The Emperor's New Clothes, for TheatreWorks USA in 1985.
In 1992, Flaherty and Ahrens were signed by Disney to write the animated musical Song of the Sea, a coming of age story about a humpback whale.
Also in 1992, Flaherty and Ahrens wrote the musical My Favorite Year, based on the film of the same title, with a book by Joseph Dougherty.
Flaherty would eventually go on to write three additional original musicals for Lincoln Center Theatre, all in collaboration with Ms. Ahrens: A Man of No Importance (2002, with a book by Terrence McNally), Dessa Rose (2005) and The Glorious Ones (2007).
Following the success of Ragtime, Flaherty and Ahrens returned to Broadway in 2000 with Seussical, based on the works of Dr. Seuss, and co-conceived with Eric Idle.
Inspired by the famous sculpture, Little Dancer, Aged 14 by Edgar Degas, the musical had a reading in 2010 at Lincoln Center Theater and a developmental lab production in June 2010.
The musical is inspired by true events and focuses on the relationship between a young ballerina and 19th century French painter and sculptor Edgar Degas.
A re-working of the show, titled Marie, Dancing Still (after the name of the young ballerina), had its west coast premiere at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre in March 2019.
Flaherty's next Broadway musical was Anastasia, featuring lyrics by Ms. Ahrens, a book by Terrence McNally, and based on the 1956 and 1997 films.
The show was subsequently produced internationally in Madrid, Stuttgart, The Netherlands, São Paulo, Mexico City, and Tokyo, and has had several US tours.
He wrote the original film score for the documentary After the Storm (2009), which follows a group of teenagers as they perform Ahrens and Flaherty's Once On This Island in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina.
An earlier version of the show was initially titled A Long Gay Book, and had its premiere at Northwestern University in May 2003.
[12] Flaherty collaborated with the director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli on a new "dance-theatre musical", In Your Arms, which premiered at the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, California, September 24, 2015.
The show consists of 10 vignettes on the topic of “romantic destiny”, which were written by Douglas Carter Beane, Nilo Cruz, Christopher Durang, Carrie Fisher, David Henry Hwang, Rajiv Joseph, Terrence McNally, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage and Alfred Uhry, all of which were set to music by Flaherty.
The piece premiered in April 2009 at Carnegie Hall by the New York Pops and sung by Idina Menzel, Anika Noni Rose, and the children's chorus from the Choir Academy of Harlem.