BMI hosts "War Brides" Reading September 27

BMI , in conjunction with Musical Mondays Theatre Lab and the New York Musical Theatre Festival, will host a reading of the award-winning musical War Brides on Tuesday, September 27 at 2:30pm. The event, held at BMI's New York office (320 West 57th Street), will be open to NYMF gold passholders with a limited number of seats available for free to the public through Musical Mondays Theatre Lab. To register, please contact (212) 989-6706 or MusicalMondays@aol.com.

War Brides, a romantic musical about British women and their struggle to be reunited with the US soldiers they met and married during World War II, was named Best Show of the Year by the Norwich Bulletin and Best New Work by The Spirit of Broadway Theatre at the 2002 Spirit Awards. It was the lead-off event at York Theatre's Fall 2005 Developmental Reading Series.

The Philadelphia Inquirer called War Brides "…the little musical that could." The Trenton Times praised it as the score "…that marries the swing sounds of the 1940s to the sophistication of the modern, post-Sondheim musical [with a hint of English music hall]."

Production credits include bookwriter Ron Sproat, a television veteran who earned an Emmy nomination for Rachel's Summer; lyricist Frank Evans, winner of the Jerry Bock Award and member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop Steering Committee; composer Christopher Berg, who recently completed an opera based on Shakespeare's Cymbeline and is composing a set of songs commissioned by the Mirror Visions Ensemble for performances in Paris; Director Bick Goss, a Dramalogue Award winner, who recently directed Roman Nights at the DR2; Musical Director Mark Janas (Talk of the Town); and Associate Director Christopher Windom.

Actors featured in the title roles include Kristin Maloney (Drama League performance honoree currently appearing as Dorothy Parker in Talk of the Town), Julie Reyburn (Broadway Year by Year, MAC and Nightlife Award winner), Lauren Shealy (Lingoland), Christina Morrell (Oklahoma! national co.) and Vanessa June Marshall (Animazement for Disney). Jeff Scot Carey (NYMF-title role in Dorian, Rent national co.), Steve Sterner (That's Life, Yentl) and Matt Citron play the men in their lives. The focus is on two British women, Mo (Maloney) and Ivy (Reyburn).

The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, recently honored with the 2005 Drama League Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre, was founded in 1961 by the late Lehman Engel, dean of American musical theatre, to create a setting where new writers could learn their craft. Since its inception, the Workshop has been operated by BMI free of any cost to participants; admission is based on merit.

Now marking its 65th year in business, BMI is an American performing rights organization that represents more than 300,000 songwriters, composers and publishers in all genres of music. With a repertoire of more than 6.5 million musical works from around the world, the non-profit-making corporation collects license fees from businesses that use music, which it then distributes as royalties to the musical creators and copyright owners it represents.

Dedicated to discovering new work and new artists, the New York Musical Theatre Festival celebrates the diversity, creativity and future of musical theatre. NYMF is a flagship program of the National Music Theater Network, a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization, and is America's largest annual musical theatre event. NYMF is produced in association with Cadillac and Virgin Megastores and proudly supported by amNewYork, the Village Voice, WB11, Receptasign, King Displays, Rosco Lighting, Scharff Weisberg Inc, Dodger Stages, TheaterMania.com, BroadwayWorld.com, broadway.com, HX, Next and Manhattan Living. For more information, visit www.nymf.org.