Dates, Guidelines Announced for 2012 Yale Institute for Music Theatre, Now thru 6/17

The Yale Institute For Music Theater (Mark Brokaw, Artistic Director) will select up to three original music theatre works to be developed in an intensive lab setting in New Haven today, June 4 through June 17, 2012.

Established in 2009, YIMT is a program of the Yale School of Drama (James Bundy, Dean) that endeavors to bridge the gap between training and the professional world for emerging composers, playwrights, lyricists, and librettists. YIMT seeks distinctive and original music theatre works by emerging composers and writers to be developed in an intensive lab setting. During a two-week summer residency in New Haven, the Institute matches the authors of the selected works with collaborators, including professional directors and music directors, as well as a company of actors and singers that includes professionals from NYC and current Yale students. The residency culminates with open rehearsal readings of each project, presented as part of the 2012 International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

The selections for the inaugural Yale Institute For Music Theater in 2009 were the book musicals sam i was with book, music, and lyrics by Sam Wessels and POP! with book and lyrics by Maggie-Kate Coleman and music by Anna K. Jacobs and the opera Invisible Cities with score and libretto by Christopher Cerrone. The Institute’s other projects have included The Daughters with music and libretto by Shaina Taub, and Stuck Elevator with music by Byron Au Yong and libretto by Aaron Jafferis, in 2010, and Maren of Vardø with music by Jeff Myers and libretto by Royce Vavrek, Pregnancy Pact with music by Julia Meinwald and book and lyrics by Gordon Leary, and The Profit of Creation with music by Tim Rosser and book and lyrics by Charlie Sohne, in 2011.

Participants must be available for the full duration of the residency. Each member of the writing team will receive an honorarium of $1,000, as well as round-trip transportation and accommodation.

Mark Brokaw (ARTISTIC DIRECTOR) Recent Broadway credits include After Miss Julie, Reckless, The Constant Wife and the new musical Cry-Baby. New York premieres include works by Paula Vogel (her Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive), Kenneth Lonergan, Craig Lucas, Nicky Silver, David Auburn, Charles Busch, Eric Bogosian, Douglas Carter Beane, Wendy Wasserstein, Julia Cho, Lisa Kron, and Lynda Barry. His regional credits include the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center, the Guthrie, Center Theatre Group, Yale Rep, Steppenwolf, Seattle Rep, Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, Huntington, Berkeley Rep, Sundance Theatre Lab, O’Neill Theatre Conference, and New York Stage & Film. His work has also been seen at London’s Donmar Warehouse and Dublin’s Gate Theatre. He is the recipient of the Alan Schneider Award presented by TCG, a TCG-PEW ResidenCy Grant, a Fosse Fellowship, the OBIE and Drama Desk, and the Drama League Fellowship. Mark is an associate artist of the Roundabout Theatre in New York and a Yale School of Drama graduate.