Welcome to "30 Days of NYMF"
By Isaac Robert Hurwitz Executive Director and Producer, NYMF
It's hard to believe it's been seven years since we announced our first festival - a group of directors, producers, writers, actors, and others who shared the dream of getting new musicals in front of an audience. We didn't quite know how we'd make it happen - but with passion, determination and an outpouring of support, happen it did.
This year's festival starts in just two weeks, and I'm stunned to see how far we've come. In the relatively few years since NYMF began, we've seen alumni shows play on and off-Broadway, winning OBIE Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Tony Awards, and even a Pulitzer Prize. NYMF shows have left their mark on 44 of 50 states, plus the District of Columbia (if you run a theater in Wyoming, West Virginia or Alaska, call us!) and over a dozen countries worldwide.
I'm thrilled to kick off the "30 Days of NYMF" series on BroadwayWorld.com this year and to hand things off to folks from each of the different projects premiering this season. I hope you'll come back for the next 29 days to get an insider's perspective on the festival as some of the shows' creators, writers and composers blog about their experiences. This year we've got a little bit of everything in our line up, from Civil War veterans to tap-dancing teens, We've got adaptations of
Thomas Hardy (Tess), Tolkien (Fellowship!), and the Marx Brothers (The Most Ridiculous Thing You Ever Hoid), and more - alongside an array of original stories from the biographical (Things As They Are) to the autobiographical (
Jay Alan Zimmerman's Incredibly Deaf Musical) to the completely fictional (The Tenth Floor), and more. And for the second straight year, NYMF includes a Korean production from our sister festival in Asia, the Daegu International Musical Festival.
Some things don't change, of course: It takes over 1,000 talented artists to bring you the shows in this year's festival and nearly 100 volunteers to make NYMF itself run - not to mention numerous devoted sponsors and donors to keep it an affordable place where participants and audiences alike can take the risks that allow new musicals to flourish. NYMF remains a feat of passion, creativity, and willpower, even after seven years.
So thank you to BroadwayWorld.com for providing an outlet for voices from the incredible Festival community that makes this all possible. We're blessed with a dizzying array of talented actors, directors, designers and producers who are dedicated to keeping musical theater fresh and vibrant -- here in New York as well as across the US and around the world.
Enjoy the series -- and see you at the festival!
Isaac Robert Hurwitz Executive Director and Producer
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