Barbara Bonfigli was born in California and thriving there until, at fifteen, she discovered that her high school gave full college credit for Driver’s Education. She successfully lobbied her parents to switch her to a prep school back East that leaned more toward philosophy, literature, and European history.

Her early careers in Manhattan included editor, literary agent, and Wall St. coffee vendor. Working with composer Catherine MacDonald, she wrote lyrics for shows on and off-Broadway, including A Streetcar Named Desire at the Vivian Beaumont and St. James theaters, She Stoops to Conquer at the Guthrie, and Rebel Women at Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. 

While living in London in the 1980s and 90s, she co-founded ShowPeople Ltd, which produced Blues in the Night, Ian McKellen Acting Shakespeare, Barbara Cook: Wait ’Til You See Her, and several seasons of big and little shows. Blues… and Barbara Cook… both received Olivier nominations,  the UK’s equivalent of  the Tony awards.   

BB has studied music in Paris with Nadia Boulanger,  meditation in India with two contemporary Siddha masters, and deepens her yoga practice in New Mexico with Tias Little and the teachers at Yoga Source.

She now lives on a small Greek island and the islands of Manhattan and Santa Fe.