NAMT Awards $10,000 to Support Barrington Stage's SOUTHERN COMFORT World Premiere, 7/19-8/10

Barrington Stage Company (BSC), the award-winning theatre in Downtown Pittsfield, MA, under the leadership Artistic Director Julianne Boyd and Managing Director TriStan Wilson, has announced it has received a $10,000 National Fund grant from the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), for its Musical Theatre Lab world premiere production of the musical, Southern Comfort, July 19 - August 10.

Based on the 2001 award-winning Sundance documentary, Southern Comfort is a celebration of a uniquely American family living openly, honestly and courageously. The production will star BSC artist Jeff McCarthy and directed by Thomas Caruso (Associate Director for Matilda).

Southern Comfort features book and lyrics by Dan Collins and music by Julianne Wick-Davis. This musical previously received a Project Development Grant in support of its time at CAP21, a Writers ResidenCy Grant for its time at Playwrights Horizons and was presented in NAMT's 2012 Festival of New Musicals. Collins and Wick-Davis are also recipients of the 2012 Jonathan Larson Award for Southern Comfort, an award that honors emerging talent.

"Southern Comfort is an important and timely work that deals with a topic many people know little about: transgendering. It is our hope that this beautifully written musical will create an open dialogue with our audiences," said Julianne Boyd, Barrington Stage's Artistic Director.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) grant is from their National Fund for New Musicals, a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals. Now in its fifth year, the Fund will provide grants totaling $37,000 to 11 organizations across the country.

NAMT Executive Director Betsy King Militello stated, "We are honored to support our member theatres as they develop these exciting, innovative and provocative new musicals. With these grants, we have now awarded 56 grants totaling $234,000, all made possible by our generous funders including Stacey Mindich Productions, The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation and The ASCAP Foundation. These projects will join a growing list of important new musicals added to the canon with support from our National Fund for New Musicals."

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, and to provide a forum for musical theatre professionals to share resources and exchange information. Our 160 members, located throughout 32 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 200 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, Ordinary Days and many others, representing over 400 writers.

Barrington Stage Company, a professional award-winning Equity regional theatre located in the heart of the Berkshires, in Pittsfield, MA, was co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd. Barrington Stage's mission is three-fold: to present top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to find fresh, bold ways to bringing new audiences into the theatre-especially young people. Barrington Stage garnered national attention in 2004 when it workshopped, and premiered William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin's musical hit The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which later transferred to Broadway, where it won two Tony Awards. In 2009/2010 Barrington Stage produced the world premiere of Mark St. Germain's Freud's Last Session, which later moved Off-Broadway and played for two years. Barrington Stage was voted "Best Live Theatre" by The Berkshire Eagle readers in 2011 and 2012 and was named "Best Theatre Company" in Metroland's Best of the Capital Region 2009-2012.

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