Prospect Announces Cast for MONUMENT Concert

Prospect Theater Company, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Cara Reichel and Managing Director Melissa Huber, will present MONUMENT, a collection of new mini-musicals in concert, the culmination of Prospect's 2018 Musical Theater Lab. MONUMENT, the company's 12th lab performance, will be presented on February 3, 2018 at 8pm at The TimesCenter (242 West 41st, NYC).

For the 2018 lab, MONUMENT, eight writing teams come together to create original short musicals inspired by monuments around New York City: including the Joan of Arc statue in Riverside Park, the Simon Bolivar monument in Central Park, the Independence Flagpole in Union Square, the Postcards 9/11 sculpture in Staten Island, the Prison Ship Martyrs' monument in Fort Greene Park, The Rocket Thrower sculpture in Flushing Meadows Park, the Stonewall National Monument, and the Harriet Tubman Memorial. These public sites evoke songs and stories crafted through the six-week lab process of writing and development.

The eight new works will be performed by an ensemble cast of 18 diverse performers, consisting of both Prospect alumni and newcomers. The company includes Gina Naomi Baez, Donnie Cianciotto, Maria Couch, Peter Gosik, Tatiana Lofton, Aline Mayagoitia, Rebecca Odorisio, Toren Nakamura, Jay Paranada, Diane Phelan, Destinee Rea, Cliff Sellers, Desi Waters, Jeff Williams, Julian Wolfe, Carla Woods, Sarah Ziegler, and Luke Zimmerman.

This year's writing teams include Rebecca Aparicio & Stephen Anthony Elkins, Alanya Bridge, Jared Dembowski & Michael Lluberes, Tia DeShazor & Andy Roninson, Marella Martin Koch & Minhui Lee, Lauren Taslitz & Danny Ursetti, Justin Taylor & Jeff Tang, and Marcus Yi. Their full biographies follow.

The lab is directed by Prospect's Associate Artistic Director Dev Bondarin and music directed by Dan Pardo. The process is co-curated by Bondarin and Reichel. Stage management is by Hannah Barudin and Kyle Conn.

"Prospect's annual writers lab is one of our most impactful programs. It engages a diverse array of artistic viewpoints and styles in dialogue with a shared theme," said Reichel. "The outcome is always compelling, and this year we are once again thrilled to showcase these talented writers and their world premiere works in our IGNITE Series of concerts."

Prospect's annual Musical Theater Lab (established in 2008) is a developmental program which offers emerging writers a platform to connect, create, and workshop new material on a compact timeline. Writing teams are selected through an open application process, and pen short new works in response to a curated assignment. The resulting pieces are rehearsed, staged and presented to public audiences as a cohesive evening performed by a versatile ensemble of performers.

Tickets ($15 - $35) are available by visiting www.ProspectTheater.org or by calling (212) 352-3101.

Launched in 2015, Prospect's IGNITE Series is an ongoing concert initiative at The TimesCenter, featuring today's new voices shaping tomorrow's musical theater. The TimesCenter (www.TheTimesCenter.com) is located at 242 West 41st Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, in the heart of NYC's Times Square District. The venue features a 378-seat auditorium with state-of-the-art lighting, sound, and video capability, and a Steinway Concert Grand Piano.

Previous lab projects have included Museum Pieces (2008), Map Quest (2009), Snapshots (2010), Souvenir Stories (2011), Rites of Passage (2012), Portraits(2013), Street Seen (2014), the By The Numbers concert (June 2015), Stage Fright (October 2015), Archetype (2016), and the World Views concert (2017).

Funding for MONUMENT is provided by the ASCAP Foundation's Irving Caesar Fund. Prospect's IGNITE Series is generously supported by the Ford Foundation's Good Neighbor Committee.