John Ertman & Joseph Mathusek are a professional songwriting team based in New York City. The pair have been friends since middle school and penned their first composition, "La Tempesta," for a 7th grade music class assignment. Since then, the two have grown into a serious collaborative songwriting team responsible for the creation of an extensive work portfolio across multiple genres of commercial music, namely musical theatre.

In the spring of 2021, their first musical Alone, was produced as a two-week workshop by the American Music Theatre Project in Evanston, IL. The following summer, Alone was workshopped again, this time as a 29-Hour reading, in Paper Mill Playhouse’s Black Box Theater. The pair then began to assemble a team of seasoned Broadway professionals, including Susanna Wolk (& Juliet) and Patrick B. Phillips (Suffs), to direct and music direct, respectively. This team subsequently produced a professional concept cast album of Alone, entitled “Alone: The Concept Album” which is set to release later in 2024. In May 2023, the team also produced a concert version of Alone which premiered at the acclaimed 54 Below in New York City.

Following their sold-out debut at 54 Below, Ertman & Mathusek were commissioned by Meghan Finn, Artistic Director of The Tank, to adapt Paul Hufker’s Mews: A Play About Why We Love Our Pets People from a one act play into a full-length musical. The pair composed 17 original songs over the course of eight months and delivered the first full-length draft of Mews: The Musical! to The Tank in March 2024. In February 2025, Mews workshopped for three weeks with the Institute for American Music Theatre, culminating in two industry presentations.

John Ertman and Joseph Mathusek are highly trained in songwriting and composition. John is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Theatre & Legal Studies, a Certificate of Musical Theatre, and was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Creating The Musical specialization for writing & composition in musical theatre. Joseph is completing his BM in Vocal Performance from BYU-Idaho where he also studies composition, orchestration, and arranging. In addition, the pair are students of (and have had their work critiqued by) several Broadway and West End composers including Mark Hollmann (Urinetown), Masi Asare (Paradise Square), Craig Carnelia (Working), Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), and David Bell (Hot Mikado, A Dolly Parton Christmas Carol).

Combined, Ertman & Mathusek have written nearly 75 songs before the age of 25, including over 40 compositions in music theatre, with more on the way! Click the button below to learn more about Our Work!