Andrew Lippa to Host NAMT Songwriters Showcase, 10/28 at New World Stages

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announced today that NAMT alum and Broadway composer/lyricist Andrew Lippa will host a Songwriters Showcase as part of the 23rd Annual Festival of New Musicals on Friday, October 28 from 1:30-2:30pm at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street).

Currently represented on Broadway and on National Tour with The Addams Family, Lippa's Jerry Christmas and A Little Princess were presented in 2005 and 2006 respectively at the NAMT Festival of New Musicals. A studio recording of A Little Princess is now available on Ghostlight/Sh-K-Boom Records.

This year's Showcase will highlight shows that have received development support through NAMT's National Fund for New Musicals, now in its third year. The Showcase will feature songs from the new musicals Blood Magic by Ian Williams and Aaron Jafferis; February House by Gabriel Kahane and Seth Bockley; Love Kills by Kyle Jarrow; Next Thing You Know by Joshua Salzman and Ryan Cunningham; Post Office by Melissa James Gibson and Michael Friedman; Saint Ex by Jenny Geiring and Sean Barry; and Snow by Sean Hartley. Grants were awarded to NAMT members The Old Globe, The Public Theater, Lark Play Development, CAP21, Center Theatre Group, The Weston Playhouse Theatre Co., and The Spirit of Broadway Theatre, respectively, for their work on the musicals being presented this year.

Ryan Cunningham, Jenny Geiring, Sean Hartley, Aaron Jafferis, Kyle Jarrow, Joshua Saltzman, and Ian Williams are NAMT alums whose works have been part of the Festival of New Musicals.

Andrew Lippa received a 2010 Tony nomination for Best Original Score and 2010 Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics for The Addams Family. New York theatre credits include The Wild Party (Manhattan Theatre Club); the score for Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention (Broadway); new songs for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Broadway); john & jen (co-written with Tom Greenwald). Recordings: The Wild Party, john & jen, ...Charlie Brown, Julia Murney's I'm Not Waiting, Bat Boy (Producer) and the recently released A Little Princess (co-written with Brian Crawley). Awards: 2000 Grammy nomination; winner of Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, ASCAP/Richard Rodgers and Gilman/Gonzalez-Falla Theater Foundation Awards. As Kristin Chenoweth's music director: Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco symphonies; Carnegie Hall; the Metropolitan Opera House, among others. Next up: music/lyrics for Jules Feiffer's The Man in the Ceiling (Disney Theatrical). Andrew is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Music. andrewlippa.com.

In 2009, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) launched the National Fund for New Musicals, a major granting initiative to support theatres and writers as they work together to create a new musical. NAMT established the National Fund for New Musicals in order to provide a creative and effective process to support a musical's development. NAMT offers a support system to help member theatres of all sizes to collaborate with one another and with other musical theatre artists, in order to bring more musicals to audiences around the world. In three years, NAMT has distributed over $150,000 to 27 organizations supporting the work of over 60 writers and 32 musicals as part of the National Fund for New Musicals.

Casting will be announced shortly.

Seating will be available free to the general public 20 minutes prior to the presentation, via a stand-by line.

The musical theatre festival attracts theatre producers from around the world for this industry-only event to discover eight new musicals presented in 45-minute staged readings over two days. All production costs are underwritten by NAMT, with no cost to the songwriting teams. Since 1989, the Festival has presented over 250 musicals and 475 writers, and almost 75% of these shows have found subsequent productions, tours, licensing agreements, and/or cast albums as a direct result of the Festival.

For the eighth consecutive year NAMT's Festival of New Musicals will be presented at the premiere Off-Broadway facility New World Stages, located west of the Theatre District at 340 West 50th Street. A limited number of tickets will be made available to the public for free on a standby basis. Registration for Industry members is free and now open at www.namt.org/festival.

The 23rd annual Festival of New Musicals is overseen by NAMT's New Work Director and Festival Producing Director Branden Huldeen and General Manager Lisa Dozier. Betsy King Militello is the Executive Director of NAMT.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, founded in 1985, is a national service organization dedicated exclusively to musical theatre. Our mission is to advance musical theatre by nurturing the creation, development, production, and presentation of new musicals. Our 150 members, located throughout 34 states and abroad, are some of the leading producers of musical theatre in the world, and include theatres, presenting organizations, higher education programs and individual producers. Among the over 250 musicals launched by NAMT's annual Festival of New Musicals are Thoroughly Modern Millie, Children of Eden, Honk!, The Drowsy Chaperone, Songs for a New World, I Love You Because, Striking 12, Vanities and many others, representing over 475 writers.

The FESTIVAL OF NEW MUSICALS is funded entirely by contributions to the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, a not-for-profit organization, and is supported in part by a generous award from the National Endowment for the Arts and by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State's 62 counties. For more information about NAMT, please visit www.namt.org.

NAMT is very grateful to the following organizations whose contributions support our mission to nurture the creation, development, and production of new musicals: The Ann Palmer Foundation, ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund, BMI Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Dubose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, The Dramatists Guild Fund, Friars Foundation, Music Theatre International, Stacey Mindich Productions, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation.