Off Broadway Alliance Announces THE FESTIVALS Seminar for 4/1; Feat. Hunter Bell, Elena K. Holy & John Capo

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off-Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing firms, will hold another in its series of seminars focused on the culture, business and history of Off-Broadway on Sunday, April 1st.

The seminar, titled “The Festivals: FringeNYC, NYMF, AFO & Beyond” will feature Hunter Bell (SILENCE! The Musical, [title of show] (sic.) Now. Here. This.), Elena K. Holy (Producing Artistic Director of The Present Company, creator of the New York International Fringe Festival), Isaac Robert Hurwitz (Executive Director of NYMF, the New York Musical Theatre Festival) and Michael Wolk (Executive Director of the All For One Theater Festival). John Capo, President of John Capo Public Relations, will moderate the discussion.

“The Festivals: FringeNYC, NYMF, AFO & Beyond” will be held at The Snapple Theater Center’s Jerry Orbach Theater. Doors will open at 11:30am for complimentary coffee and bagels. The panel will take place from Noon - 1:30pm with additional time allotted afterward for conversation with fellow attendees. The Snapple Theater Center is located at 210 West 50th Street (at Broadway).

Admission for the seminar is free, however reservations are a must. To RSVP for the event, visit www.festivals.eventbrite.com before March 31st. Attendees are encouraged to pre-submit questions for the panelists when they submit their reservation. Questions will be asked live at the seminar.

Hunter Bell earned an OBIE Award, a Tony nomination and a Drama League nomination for Best Book of a Musical all for the original Broadway musical [title of show] (sic.). Other credits include the books for SILENCE! The Musical, Bellobration! (Ringling Bros. Circus), Villians Tonight! (Disney Cruise Lines), Now. Here. This. (Vineyard Theatre), and the upcoming The Great American Mousical (Goodspeed). He is a co-creator of the web series the [title of show] show and recently co-created and co-wrote the pilot Glass Houses for ABC Studios/Television and Cherry-Wind Productions. Hunter has developed new works at the O’Neill Center, Ars Nova, PS 122, Weston Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Source, and the NYMF and NY Fringe Festivals. He is a distinguished alumnus of Webster University, a proud member of WGA, the Dramatists Guild, and a MacDowell Fellow.

Elena K. Holy is the Producing Artistic Director of The Present Company, a not-for-profit theatre producing organization dedicated to inciting art, cultivating community and creating new American theatre. In 1996, The Present Company created the First Annual New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC). As Producer, Holy was awarded the 1997 New York Magazine Award for her "creativity, vision and enterprise" in creating the festival. FringeNYC recently celebrated its 15th anniversary and is the largest multi-arts festival in North America. Holy directs an all-volunteer staff of 100 people, over 2000 additional volunteers, and 5000 artists representing 200 companies from all over the world, producing nearly 1200 performances annually. Productions from FringeNYC have appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway and on the road. Many have been published and turned into screenplays. In 2006, Holy was named one of New York Magazine’s “Influentials” because she “turned the Fringe Festival, which she founded in 1996, into Sundance for the theater crowd - a place where anyone with an idea and a tiny budget can get noticed. Urinetown, the 1999 Fringe musical that made it to Broadway and won three Tonys, is the most extreme example, but more than a dozen Fringe shows have gone on to significant Off Broadway runs. Applications approached 1,000 last year.” In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg awarded The New York International Fringe Festival the Mayor’s Award for Arts & Culture “for its phenomenal leadership in showcasing the best and boldest theater and performance by both established and emerging artists. The New York International Fringe Festival is renowned for presenting work that reflects the excitement and energy of the contemporary theater world - locally, nationally and abroad.”

Isaac Robert Hurwitz is the executive director and producer of The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), which he co-founded in 2004. The largest annual musical theatre event in the world, NYMF has premiered over 300 new musicals and was the youngest organization ever to win the prestigious $100,000 Jujamcyn Theaters Award for “outstanding contributions to the development of creative talent in the theatre.” Under Isaac’s leadership, the Festival has grown to include a six-month writer service program, annual commissions of new work, year-round educational programming, and partnerships with musical theatre producers and presenters around the world. Dedicated to expanding the reach and impact of musical theatre, the Festival inaugurated a dance musicals series in 2006 and a series of international musical Theater Productions (presented in their native languages) in 2009. More than 70 shows launched by NYMF have gone on to future productions (in nearly every state and in over a dozen countries), including the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Next to Normal, the Tony-nominated [title of show], the long-running Off-Broadway hit Altar Boyz, and many others. In 2010, Isaac received the Arts and Business Council of New York’s Encore Award for his work at NYMF. Before co-founding NYMF in 2004, Isaac headed EST's musical theatre development program, The Rusty Magee Music Project, which he helped establish. He served for two years as a director-in-residence at EST, and returned there in 2005 to produce the world premiere of Carey Perloff’s play, Luminescence Dating. He is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Directors' Lab and the Commercial Theatre Institute, and a member of SSD&C.

Michael Wolk is Executive Director of the All For One Theater Festival. He is a playwright and composer (Deep Cover, NYMF 2009), novelist (The Beast on Broadway), screenwriter (Innocent Blood) and producer. Since 1997, he has served as CEO of Gorgeous Entertainment Inc., a New York-based theater, film, and special events Production Company, co-founded with Kumiko Yoshii. Theater credits include The Temple of the Golden Pavillion, Musashi and Modern Noh Plays at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Broadway revival of Pacific Overtures (four Tony Award nominations), Macbeth (BAM), Up in the Air (Kennedy Center), Big River (national tour and Tokyo), and The Fantasticks (London’s West End). Film credits include the award-winning documentary You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story, which Wolk also wrote and directed. Special events include Japan Day @ Central Park, now in its sixth year.

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