Musical Theatre West Reveals Works Selected For 2026 New Works Reading Festival
Executive Director Paul Garman discusses the works ahead of the company's 75th anniversary season.
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After two successful 2025 readings with Tony Award winning talent, Musical Theatre West has announced the three new musicals that will be featured as a part of their 2026 New Works Reading Festival are A Collectible Sensation, with music and lyrics by Amy Engelhardt and book and lyrics by Arianna Rose, Miss Hysteria, with music and lyrics by Ben Zeadman and book and lyrics by Laura Schein, and Zapata: A Folklorico Superhero Musical, with music, lyrics, and book by Jesse J. Sanchez. The three new musicals will be featured as part of the invite-only reading festival in Long Beach, CA on September 18-19, 2026.
“As we prepare for our 75th year of sharing our passion for musical theatre, we are so excited to usher in the next generation of musicals that make up the next 75 years of Musical Theatre West.” said Paul Garman, Executive Director/Producer for MTW. “These three pieces celebrate many different aspects of the human experience and speak to multiple different audiences, and we're so proud to be a part of their developmental journey.”
Zapata: A Folklorico Superhero Musical recently had its world premiere at the Zach Theater, after receiving the Frank Young Production Grant from the National Alliance of Musical Theatre. Previously, the musical had development residencies/workshops at Live & In Color, Teatro Vivo's Austin Latinx New Play Festival, and The Orchard Project, in addition to a workshop reading at the Zach Theater and a commission from the TYA/USA BIPOC Superhero Project.
The songs from Miss Hysteria premiered in 2023 at the FNAM's Musi-Cal at Bourbon Room Hollywood, which was followed by a workshop with the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop with Stephen Schwartz. The show won the ASCAP Foundation Lucille & Jack Yellen Award later that year, and continued its development as a part of the Johnny Mercer Writers Grove Residency at Goodspeed. In 2025, the piece was a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill NMTC and earlier this year, the show's creators were named Dramatists Guild Fellows and had a staged reading with the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals.
Beginning as the play The Equivalent of Sensation, written by book writer and co-lyricist Arianna Rose, A Collectible Sensation brought on composer and co-lyricist Amy Engelhardt to turn the piece into a musical after winning several awards. The musical has had a reading at Rough Cuts, Nautilus Music Theatre, and a workshop at The University of Minnesota/Duluth, concluding in three public readings at The Depot., presented by Dunbar Hofmann Productions LLC. The piece was a finalist for the 2024 Kleban Award for Libretto and the 2025 Tru/Streaming Musicals Reading Series, NYC, and a semi-finalist for the 2025 Circle in the Square Theatre School Musical Theatre Residency, the 2023 Eugene O'Neill New Musical Theatre Conference, and the 2023 Normal Avenue NYC Nap Series.
MTW's New Works Program began in 2021, and spawned from participation in Inclusion Media Company's “Raise Your Voice Playwriting Competition.” Since then, MTW has produced five 29-hour staged reading festivals, with the goal of providing writers of new musical theatre an opportunity to see their work on its feet and receive an audience's feedback. To learn more about the MTW New Works Program, visit https://musical.org/events/new-works/.
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Good Night, Oscar North Coast Repertory (9/16-10/11) |
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Much Ado About Nothing McCadden Place Theatre (8/07-8/16) |
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6 Out of 10 Theatre 68 (8/20-8/20) |
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After the Blast The Broadwater Second Stage (8/05-8/13) |
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Catch Me If You Can Colony Theatre (9/17-10/18) |
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Emily Skinner: In Concert Feinstein's at the Nikko (8/14-8/15) |
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Gershwin and the Golden Age Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya) (10/11-10/11) |
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John Lloyd Young Feinstein's at the Nikko (8/21-8/22) |
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Love, Loss and What I Wore Sawyer's Playhouse (8/08-8/30) |
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Our Man in Santiago by Mark Wilding Odyssey Theatre Ensemble (9/10-9/20) |