The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announced today the creative teams selected to be part of the 23rd Annual Festival of New Musicals on Thursday, October 27 and Friday, October 28 at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street).
Mark Brokaw,
Joe Calarco,
Jeremy Dobrish,
Gordon Greenberg,
John Simpkins, and
Scott Schwartz have been tapped to direct the musicals featured in the Festival of New Musicals.
Drama Desk winner
Mark Brokaw will direct Pregnancy Pact, a pop-rock musical inspired by the 2008 TIME Magazine article about a group of teens who made a pact to become single mothers together written by Gordon Leary (book and lyrics), and music by Julia Meinwald. Rich Silverstein is music director.
Joe Calarco directs Bernice Bobs Her Hair, based on the classic short story of the same name by
F. Scott Fitzgerald, with book by
Julia Jordan, music by
Adam Gwon, with lyrics by
Julia Jordan and
Adam Gwon. Andy Einhorn is music director.
notes to MariAnne, an original pop/rock musical that explores the consequences of leaving someone you love, features book, music and lyrics by
David Rossmer and
Dan Lipton, and will be directed by
Jeremy Dobrish.
Gordon Greenberg directs Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge, with music and lyrics by
Peter Mills, and book by
Peter Mills and
Cara Reichel. Based on J.M. Synge's classic Irish comedy The Playboy of the Western World, Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge is transplanted to 1930s Appalachia and set to a bluegrass-flavored score. Eli Zoller is music director.
The Drama Desk-nominated Bloodsong of Love,
Joe Iconis's rock ‘n' roll musical theater interpretation of the Spaghetti Western film genre is directed by
John Simpkins with music direction by Brian Usifer.
The inspiring and humorous story of a young girl's battle with a life-threatening disease, Dani Girl, with music by
Michael Kooman and book and lyrics by
Christopher Dimond, will be directed by
Scott Schwartz with music direction by
Vadim Feichtner.
Additional staffing and casting will be announced at a later date.
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.
NAMT has proudly partnered with RocketHub to provide an innovative community funding solution to its members and affiliates. Every year, NAMT presents 8 new musicals for an industry only audience in 45-minute staged readings. After the producers, directors and agents leave the reading they can meet the writers of the new musical and pick up their demo CD. NAMT is not able to design and publish all of the demo CDs, which unfortunately places a financial burden on the writers. But with a donation, NAMT can take care of the demo CDs for the writers so they can focus all their time on their great musicals! For more information www.rockethub.com/projects/namt.
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 470 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.
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.
