EGOT-winning songwriters/producers Benj Pasek & Justin Paul are best known for their work on La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen, and The Greatest Showman. Their songs “City of Stars” and “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” (co-written with Justin Hurwitz) from La La Land were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, with “City of Stars” winning the Academy Award as well as the Golden Globe in the same category. The following year, in 2018, Pasek & Paul won their second Golden Globe for Best Original Song for “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman, which was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media. In 2024, Pasek & Paul won an Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for “Which Of The Pickwick Triplets Did It?” from he third season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building.

Their previous projects include Apple’s original live-action musical Spirited starring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, and Octavia Spencer, Sony’s live-action hybrid musical Lyle, Lyle Crocodile starring Shawn Mendes and Javier Bardem, songs for Disney’s live-action movie musical Aladdin, Dreamworks Animation’s Trolls, Amazon’s documentary film Pink: All I Know So Far (for which they received a Grammy nomination), and Amazon’s comedy series Harlem (in collaboration with songwriter Sukari Jones). Upcoming films include Disney’s live-action musical Snow White. Most recently, Benj and Justin were awarded a Tony Award as co-producers of the Pulitzer prize-winning Broadway musical A Strange Loop.

On Broadway, they composed the score for the six-time Tony Award-winning “Best Musical” Dear Evan Hansen, their original musical for which they received an Obie Award, a Drama Desk Award, and the Tony Award for Best Score. The show broke box office records at the Music Box Theatre and became the longest-running production to play the venue in Broadway’s history. The Dear Evan Hansen Original Broadway Cast Recording won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and is certified Gold. With the release of the novelization of Dear Evan Hansen, Benj and Justin also became New York Times Best-Selling Authors.

Their albums for La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen, and The Greatest Showman each appeared in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, with The Greatest Showman holding the #1 spot for multiple weeks in a row and eventually named the best-selling album in the world in 2018. The Greatest Showman Original Motion Picture Soundtrack won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, the 2019 Billboard Music award for Top Soundtrack, and is certified Platinum in 22 countries, including Quadruple Platinum in the US, Australia, and Taiwan, 5x Platinum in China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, 6x Platinum in the Philippines, 7x Platinum in the UK, 8x Platinum in Singapore, 9x Platinum in Ireland, and 13x Platinum in Korea. 

Pasek & Paul made their Broadway debut in 2012 with their Tony-nominated score for the Broadway musical A Christmas Story, an adaptation of the classic holiday film, further adapted into a live telecast for FOX in 2017. Their new song written for the telecast, “In the Market for a Miracle,” was nominated for the 2018 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. For television they also contributed several songs to NBC’s Smash, a song for the CW’s musical episode of The Flash, and received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for the song “Unlimited,” featured in an Old Navy YouTube campaign.

Their theatre careers include the acclaimed 2012 musical Dogfight which was awarded the Lucille Lortel Award for Best New Musical. Their earlier theatre credits include the children’s musical James and the Giant Peach and the popular song cycle Edges.

Among their numerous honors, in 2007 they became the youngest winners ever of the Jonathan Larson Award for most promising musical theatre songwriters, and in 2019, they became the first writers for stage or screen to be honored with the ASCAP Vanguard Award. They are graduates of the University of Michigan and serve on the board of the Dramatists Guild Foundation.