TUNE IN TIME, The Olympics of Musical Theater Songwriting, Stages Another Round of Competition at Stage 72, Today

TUNE IN TIME, New York City's exciting, new musical theater challenge returns to Stage 72 on Tuesday, July 1 at 9 pm with a new crop of exciting up-and-coming musical theater songwriters. The composers and lyricists must write a song from a musical whose title is literally picked from a hat, and in the genre determined by a spin of "The Dreaded Genre Wheel." Will it be a historical epic? Something á la Rodgers & Hammerstein? Or even [insert name of large theme-park owning megacorporation-turned-Broadway-megalopolis here]? Oh yeah, and they have just 20 minutes to do it.

TUNE IN TIME launched in April and is the brainchild of MAC Songwriting Award-winner Amy Engelhardt, (formerly of Grammy-nominated vocal band, The Bobs) and Heather Shields, co-founder of While We Wait Productions.

First-time collaborators Garth Kravits and Erik Jareth Ransom won last week's TUNE IN TIME competition with their musical number from the jazz musical, "The Relaxed Pickle." Kravits and Ransom explained that this was the "I am" song (in musical theater structure terms) from their touching children's story of a vegetable that suffers a crisis of faith.

On July 1, musical theater writers Natalie Lovejoy, Kevin Hammonds, Pamela Grayson, William TN Hall, Matt Patrick Walsh, and Alexander Oyen will have to prove they are up to the TUNE IN TIME challenge. Celebrity judges for the evening are Kleban, Ebb and Loewe-award winning composer/lyricist Adam Gwon (Ordinary Days), veteran Broadway performer (Into The Woods) and producer (Memphis) Pamela Winslow Kashani and improvisors from Friday Night Face-Off.

TUNE IN TIME is hosted by cabaret uberhost Emily McNamara (The Chocolate Show, NEWSical, Getting the Band Back Together). Acclaimed musical director Nate Buccieri (Brandy's, The Duplex, Don't Tell Mama) tickles and pounds the ivories.

But the true stars of the evening are the brains of the writers. Can they write a TUNE IN TIME?

Caption for photo right: Host Emily McNamara (far right) and Musical Director Nate Buccieri (at the piano) launch into the TUNE IN TIME Theme Song as Garth Kravits and Erik Jareth Ransom (center) show off their prizes and runners-up David Ingber and Julia Meinwald applaud.

TUNE IN TIME at Stage 72 at the Triad, 158 W 72nd Street, NYC.
For tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/616363