Problem: Alan Irwin Menken was born on July 22, 1949, at French Hospital in New York City, to Judith and Norman Menken. His father was a boogie-woogie piano-playing dentist, and his mother was an actress, dancer and playwright. His family was Jewish. Menken developed an interest in music at an early age, taking piano and violin lessons.

Menken debuted on Broadway with a musical theatre adaptation of Beauty and the Beast that opened in 1994 and ran for 13 years before closing in 2007. In 1997, he collaborated with lyricist Tim Rice on a musical, King David, based on the biblical character, which was performed in a concert version on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Little Shop of Horrors played on Broadway from 2003 to 2004.  He next created the stage version of The Little Mermaid, which played on Broadway from 2008 to 2009 and for which he received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Score. Menken's stage adaptation of Sister Act premiered in London in 2009, and opened on Broadway in 2011. He was nominated for another Tony Award for Best Score. Menken received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010. In December 2010, he was a guest on the NPR quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.  In 2012, Menken won a Tony Award for Best Score for his musical adaptation of Newsies, which ran until 2014. He also wrote the music for Leap of Faith, which had a brief run on Broadway in 2012. His stage adaptation of Aladdin opened on Broadway in 2014, earning him another Tony nomination for Best Score. In 2013, he was a guest at the annual Junior Theatre Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, and was honored with the Junior Theater Festival Award. He gave a concert there, including music that was cut from various productions, while talking about his creative process.  Menken's stage adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame played at La Jolla Playhouse, California, in 2014. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was revived in Montreal in 2015, and A Bronx Tale: The Musical, played at the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2016.

Did he work on any other musicals?

Answer with quotes: His stage adaptation of Aladdin opened on Broadway in 2014,


Problem: Julian Paul Assange (; ne Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian computer programmer and the editor of WikiLeaks. Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006, but came to international attention in 2010, when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and CableGate (November 2010). Following the 2010 leaks, the federal government of the United States launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and asked allied nations for assistance.

Assange was born in Townsville, Queensland, to Christine Ann Hawkins (b. 1951), a visual artist, and John Shipton, an anti-war activist and builder. The couple had separated before Assange was born.  When he was a year old, his mother married Richard Brett Assange, an actor, with whom she ran a small theatre company. They divorced around 1979. Christine Assange then became involved with Leif Meynell, also known as Leif Hamilton, a member of Australian cult The Family, with whom she had a son before the couple broke up in 1982. Assange had a nomadic childhood, and had lived in over thirty Australian towns by the time he reached his mid-teens, when he settled with his mother and half-brother in Melbourne, Victoria.  He attended many schools, including Goolmangar Primary School in New South Wales (1979-1983) and Townsville State High School, as well as being schooled at home. He studied programming, mathematics, and physics at Central Queensland University (1994) and the University of Melbourne (2003-2006), but did not complete a degree.  While in his teens, Assange married a woman named Teresa, and in 1989 they had a son, Daniel Assange, now a software designer. The couple separated and initially disputed custody of their child. Assange was Daniel's primary caregiver for much of his childhood. In an open letter to French President Francois Hollande, Assange stated his youngest child lives in France with his mother. He also said that his family had faced death threats and harassment because of his work, forcing them to change identities and reduce contact with him.

What is interesting about Assange's personal life?

Answer with quotes: born in Townsville, Queensland, to Christine Ann Hawkins (b. 1951), a visual artist, and John Shipton, an anti-war activist and builder. The couple had separated before Assange was born.


Problem: "My Happiness" is a song by Australian rock band Powderfinger. It was released on record label Universal Music Australia on 21 August 2000 as the first single from the band's fourth album, Odyssey Number Five. The single is Powderfinger's most successful; it peaked at number four on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart, and charted in the United States on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart--the first Powderfinger song to do so. Powderfinger frontman Bernard Fanning wrote the lyrics for "My Happiness" as a reflection on the time the band spent touring to promote their work, and the loneliness that came as a result.

"My Happiness" was put on heavy rotation by Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM two months prior to its United States release, and Powderfinger signed a contract with United States label Republic as a result of the song's early success. Beat journalist Jayson Argall joked the song had received "a bit" of airplay. Although "My Happiness" was subsequently dropped from KROQ's roster, other radio stations continued to give the song high priority.  "My Happiness" peaked at number 23 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks, making it the first Powderfinger song to appear on a Billboard chart. According to Susan Groves of WHRL, part of the song's success came about because very few people knew of Powderfinger, but were drawn towards "My Happiness" because it was "melodic, [and] pretty"--a change from what she described as "middle of the road rock" popular in the United States. Meanwhile, Australians were "starting to get sick of My Happiness"--Cameron Adams argued in The Hobart Mercury that this was one of the reasons Powderfinger decided to focus on the offshore market.  Powderfinger performed "My Happiness" live on the Late Show with David Letterman while touring North America with British rock group Coldplay. They were the fourth Australian act (after The Living End, Silverchair, and Nick Cave) to play on the show. The band also did free promotional shows leading up to the release of the single. In Europe, "My Happiness" received approximately four weeks of airplay on German music video program Viva II, and the band sold out for three nights in a row in London, partly due to the success of the single.

What years did they tour?

Answer with quotes: