Michael Musial

The Bickford Theatre at the Morris Museum is pleased to present Billy Bishop Goes to War with book, music, and lyrics by John Gray and Eric Peterson from November 10 - 18, 2018.  David Girard stars as Billy Bishop and Michael Musial as the accompanist. This production is directed by Michael Musial in conjunction with The Theatre Institute at Sage of Troy, New York.

The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) announced today the winners of the 2017 NYMF Awards for Excellence, which were awarded on Sunday, August 6, 2017 at Hudson Terrace (621 W 46th St, New York, NY 10036). The 2017 NYMF Award for Best Musical Sponsored by Play-by-Play was awarded to GENERATION ME, with the Show-Score Best of Fest Awards for Readings, Concerts/Events and Productions, going to CHRISTMAS IN HELL, DORIAN GRAY, and ERROL AND FIDEL, respectively. GENERATION ME took home the most awards, with GEORAMA: AN AMERICAN PANORAMA TOLD ON 3 MILES OF CANVAS, ERROL AND FIDEL, and FREEDOM RIDERS taking home multiple prizes as well.

Inspired by the popular children's books by Matthew McElligott and following its world premiere at the Theatre Institute at Sage College, Backbeard: The Musical will make its New York premiere as part of the New York Musical Festival. 

The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) announced today the initial lineup for 2017 NYMF. Among the shows announced in the lineup are the Next Link Project musical selections, as well as invited production selections. Now in its fourteenth year, the 2017 Festival will take place July 10th through August 6th at locations around midtown Manhattan in New York City. Dan Markley serves as NYMF Executive Director & Producer and Rachel Sussman serves as Director of Programming & Artist Services.

On Sunday, we closed the world premiere of Backbeard: A New Musical at the Theatre Institute at Sage after a short two-week run. It came and went too quickly, and I do not know that any of us could have anticipated just how profoundly this sweet little musical would move us, how deeply it would nestle itself into our hearts.

Backbeard: A New Musical found its first audiences this past Wednesday, and we were tremendously busy leading up the first performance. Regardless of what time of day it was, a plethora of artists were working around the clock to see the visions of Backbeard's creators through to opening day. The final week before opening was an integral period of growth for artists, creators, designers, and technical staff. After weeks (or in Backbeard's case, years) of immersion in the text and the projected visions of artists, the final stretch presented the actualization of the piece, and the monstrous effort of a family of artists was realized.

We are about to enter our final week of rehearsal for Backbeard: A New Musical at the Theatre Institute at Sage! This Friday, we will begin technical rehearsals for the show, and we open for school groups next Wednesday, June 1st. It will be an exciting last week as the final details are hammered out and we finally see the results of our efforts come to fruition.

Exciting things are happening with Backbeard here at the Theatre Institute at Sage! This past week, as we've finished staging the piece and other creative elements have started surfacing in rehearsal, has been an exciting reminder of how many different mediums of art are synthesized in the creation and construction of theatrical work. Musical theatre itself is an amalgamation of several different art forms, and all of these forms must be cohesively unified in the construction of a musical theatre piece. Backbeard, which was birthed from a brilliantly illustrated book series by Matthew McElligott, has been a constant reminder of how many different types of artists with their respective mediums of art must be engaged with the piece in order to ensure its faithfulness to McElligott's illustrations while still catering to the tried-and-true guidelines of theatrical work.

According to page 136, paragraph four, subsection C of the Pirate Handbook, on a pirate's 'older-than-ninth birthday,' his trusty crew must grant him a fight! That is exactly what happened this week at the Theatre Institute at Sage in our staging of Backbeard's own birthday fight, an exciting 10-pirate quarrel with the hairiest pirate who ever lived at the center of it all.

We've just finished our first week of music rehearsals for Backbeard at the Theatre Institute at Sage! Because Backbeard has been workshopped with our department a couple of times now, most of the cast is already very familiar with the music, so the trajectory of our music rehearsals was naturally a bit different than it would have been if we were rehearsing a licensed show. The familiarity that the cast has with the material already allows for the polishing of the music earlier in the rehearsal process than is standard, and this musical stability will assist with the fluidity of rehearsal once staging begins.

The arrival of warm weather in the Northeast means for most college students that the semester is winding down and that summer break is drawing nearer; however, for theatre majors at Russell Sage College, the warm weather is an exciting indicator for us that our summer production is just around the corner! The summer show is the most unique slot in the Theatre Institute at Sage's season, as actors and technicians who work on the summer show stay on campus up to a month and a half after the semester ends to put up what is always a fun and exhilarating children's theatre piece without the additional responsibility of academic work-a rare and valuable opportunity for a college theatre student.