Looking for your own theme song? Lyricist and composer Richard Gray can carry your tune.

WHEN RICHARD GRAY SPEAKS, it's as if he is composing a song on the spot; he starts, stops and edits his word choice until he says precisely what he means. If you don't already know when you meet him that he is Seattle's very own Renaissance man—actor, writer, director, composer, pianist, lyricist, librettist—this running wordplay is your first clue.

And it's come in handy in his work. Many recognize Gray from Forbidden Xmas, the popular cabaret-style, 15-year-on-and-off holiday parody of local events and icons that he writes and performs in with other local singer/actors. Initially a scheme to cheer up a friend in mourning, Xmas, with its snappy, leave-you-humming songs such as "Starbucks Coffee Grinder Suite" and "The Bon Star Blues," became one of the key works of Gray's career—and also one that helped him define his own unique skill. After many years of production, however, Gray grew tired of simply parodying other songs. So he started composing his own works, both for Xmas and for other musical theater projects. "I said, 'Well, I’ll just write the whole song,' ' he says, "and I realized I was good at it."

He's so good at it, in fact, that the 42-year-old Gray has decided to sell his skills to the masses with Song Portraits, his custom songwriting service for special occasions. Think This is Your Life meets a pop ballad, musical theater number or country-western song—whatever your inner tune happens to be, Gray will find it.

"You have to trust me as you would a painter," Gray says about writing for a client. "I want my songs to be like the songs on the radio, when you're listening and you think, 'Oh my God! That's my life!'

Before the Song Portraits launch last July, he had already ventured out, writing songs as gifts for his father and his partner {Seattle magazine Flash Talk columnist Ernie Pino), as well as for his brother's wedding and for a tribute to Jack and Becky Benaroya in 2005. But the real success of his idea came when his Song Portrait package went to not one but two of the highest bidders—at $8,000 a pop—at the 5th Avenue Theatre auction this year.

This "musical genius," as Linda Hartzell of Seattle Children's Theatre calls him, has an unstoppable passion for the local arts scene. In the late '80s, when he moved to Seattle from his native Portland, where he also studied acting in college, he began arranging music in his first job for the now-defunct Bathhouse Theater Company in Green Lake. A lifelong pianist and self-professed ham, his combined talent made music arranging and composing easy.

In 1989, he became a frequent performer (as a pianist and singer) at the Rainier Tower's dinner theater restaurant Crepe de Paris, where he created Forbidden Xmas. His nonstop work since then includes serving as composer of the Seattle Children's Theatre musicals Little Rock in ’95 and  Time Again in Oz in ‘99; composer and director of The Donk Sisters in '95 at Crepe de Paris; composer and performer of Gray Matter, a revue of his own career and just this year, conductor and musical director for 5th Avenue's The Buddy Holly Story.

Others outside of Seattle are beginning to take notice. He was nominated the last two years for the national Fred Ebb Foundation award, winch honors up-and-coming musical theater writers. He's also writing a new show with Tony-award-winning lyricist Martin Charnin (Annie) based on the "Modern Love" column in The New York Times. The more notice, the better, says David Armstrong, 5th Avenues producing artistic director. "Our entire amazing Seattle theater scene deserves more recognition," he says. "We are one of Americas three great theater towns, along with New York and Chicago, and Rich is an important part of that."

Passion and hard work also combine in Grays other mission: to get musical theater writers and composers more credit for their hard work. "There's a person like me in every city in the United States," he says, "but people aren’t looking for musical writers." He is hoping to launch Forbidden Xmas nationally as A Christmas Cash Cow and hopes that the success of such a venture will expand the pool of recognized songwriters and vocalist musicians.

Recognition aside, Grays new song-writing business is the final distillation of his passion. "I believe that every person has a story and within every personality is a song," he says, noting that songs capture aspects of humanity in a different way than poetry, prose and paintings. "You can say things in a lyric that you can't normally say. It would sound corny."

"This is why I write and this is what I do, and people seem to like it," he adds. And if you like it too, you can soon sing along to your very own song.

SING TO YOUR OWN TUNE

Song Portraits range from $2,500-6,000