30 Days of NYMF on BroadwayWorld - Day One

"30 Days of NYMF" will once again be a regular column on BroadwayWorld.com for the month of September, offering a different perspective every day on what it's like to be a part of the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival. These columns will be written in the first person by someone involved in the Festival, and will offer you their unedited perspective on the process. Day One is by Kris Stewart, Executive Director and founder of NYMF.

So, I guess I get to be the guy that introduces the "30 Days of NYMF"!

Over the next month, BroadwayWorld.com will be featuring a different artist, person or event within NYMF; and for each article, someone from that show will write a short personal piece about their time at the Festival. We're going to try to give you articles that will offer an inside look at what the experience of being in the Festival is really like – hopefully some positive stories, but hopefully someone will really cut loose on us as well.

So – here's my perspective on September 1, ten days out from the beginning of NYMF the third.

I remember arriving in NYC from Australia four or five years ago. Like a lot of people, I was drawn to NYC because I loved musical theatre and I wanted to prove myself here. Every day people arrive here because New York is the centre of the musical world, and most of us have fantasies of how it will be.

And you have fantasies of how big it will be. Don't get me wrong – New York is obviously a very big city. But the musical theatre community is a small one, like it is anywhere - everyone knows everyone, and what everyone is doing or has done.

I think, subconsciously, that I expected to find that there was something like NYMF here already, a platform for new talent and for celebrating musical theatre. A big-ass party for folks, like me, that came to NYC because we love musicals and we love that they give this city its point of difference, give it its pulse. Instead, what existed for new artists was an incredible range of ways to develop and hone your talent – such as ASCAP, BMI, NYU, NAMT – but precious few to showcase it. There seems to be a range of ways to help develop works, but very few to produce them.

Which is understandable, really. We like to think that if you get a work good enough, the producing will take care of itself. And it seems so safe – keeping the work in perpetual development keeps it private, behind closed doors, where the risks are low and you're sharing it with people who are there to support it.

But I don't really feel that's theatre. And it is certainly not musical theatre. Musicals are energetic and noisy and unwieldy and living, breathing things that don't exist until they have an audience, a cast and an overture (hopefully) – they refuse to stay on a page and they refuse to stay quiet. Musicals by their nature HAVE to be public, they HAVE to be shared. They are kinda goofy and kinda fun and they need a lot of people coming together at any one time for exactly the same reason if they're ever to come alive. Musicals by their nature are a celebration – which is why they belong in a Festival.

Okay, I'm biased. But I am a big fan of parties and celebrations. So let's get this party started, goddamnit.