Amas Musical Theatre Announces Recipients of Seventh Annual Eric H. Weinberger Award For Emerging Librettists

Amas Musical Theatre has announced the recipients of the seventh Eric H. Weinberger Award for Emerging Librettists, a juried cash and production grant given annually to support the early work and career of a deserving musical theatre librettist. The award commemorates the life and work of playwright/librettist Eric H. Weinberger (1950-2017), who was a Drama Desk Award nominee for Best Book of a Musical (Wanda's World), and the playwright/librettist of Class Mothers '68, which earned Priscilla Lopez a Drama Desk Award nomination.

Sophie Boyce and Veronica Mansour, graduates of NYU's Musical Theatre Playwrighting program were selected from over 50 blind submissions for their full-length musical The Dark Lady. In addition to a check for $2,000 to help pay cost-of-living expenses, Mr. Romano and Mr. Wegner receive development assistance from the “Amas Musical Theatre Lab” of Amas Musical Theatre, culminating in the work being rehearsed and performed by New York theatre professionals in an Amas Lab production. Amas was the development home for several of Mr. Weinberger's musicals, which produced the World Premiere of Wanda's World and the New York Premiere of Tea for Three.

The year is 1588. Emilia Bassano is crafting some of the most remarkable stories the world will see. But women are not permitted to write plays, and so theatre's greatest characters stand to be lost in the abyss. That is until a deal is struck with the stableboy, William Shakespeare. The Dark Lady is a musical that mixes historical fact, speculation and imagination, depicting the ‘what-if' scenario whereby the poet Bassano is the true author of Shakespeare's works. Historians agree that Bassano and Shakespeare were lovers and that she was the subject of his Dark Lady sonnets. Some speculate that he plagiarized her works. But this show depicts an extraordinary woman who takes matters into her own hands, convincing Shakespeare to be her co-conspirator in order for her voice to be heard. Told by a Greek chorus of Shakespeare's most groundbreaking female characters, with an 8-person cast and a score that fuses synth-pop with classical music, the show has enough historical accuracy and attention to word-play to thrill any lover of Shakespeare, but it's ultimately a universal story about passion and love, betrayal and sacrifice.

In an artistic statement for the submission, Ms. Boyce and Ms. Mansour say“”We're a writing team drawn to centring female characters who take up space without apology. We like to write women who conduct themselves with utter devotion, who are relentless in pursuit of their dreams. We believe in writing complicated, flawed individuals; empowering women by depicting messiness instead of perfection. So when we discovered Emilia Bassano, we fell head over heels for her. She was the first woman to have a book of poems published in her name. A woman who snuck feminist rhetoric into the religious poetry she was confined to writing. Who was, at the very least, an enormous influence on the works of Shakespeare. What's not to love?! But the more we worked on this piece, the more urgent it appeared to be. This is a woman who chose her work over her ego; sacrificing individual acclaim so that her characters could speak for women everywhere, when women could not speak out for themselves. Although Emilia never got the fame or recognition, we wanted to look at what success REALLY means ... is it how we are known, or is it what we do that really matters? In this social media driven world, where we're all promoting false images of ourselves, we wanted to shine a light on the fact that Shakespeare's fame means nothing compared to Emilia's truth and integrity. That she's the one who's done something truly meaningful, and that makes her the ultimate victor. We love Emilia for her boldness, her drive, her creativity, her passion, her genius. We deeply admire her for choosing something larger than herself. And we feel that makes her an essential character to highlight right now.”

“We are very happy to welcome Sophie and Veronica to the Amas family,” says Donna Trinkoff, Artistic Producer of Amas Musical Theatre. “We are honored and grateful to continue to commemorate Eric's legacy and are looking forward to the further development of this piece. The Dark Lady is a very accomplished musical in both lyrics and music. We are looking forward to helping this show to reach the wider audience that it deserves.”