Thank you to everyone who submitted shows to this year’s Festival…160 scripts were sent in for review! Many people ask me: What happens next? Well it is a simple process to explain but a long and hard process to carry out.
Shows submitted to the Festival are sent on to the Festival Committee, a group of 13 brilliant and brave NAMT members who will each read and evaluate 25 or so shows between now and late April. The shows are all “blind,” meaning the Committee knows nothing (no authors’ names or production history) but the art in front of them. I send each show on to committee members who are most likely to love the show and advocate for it.
Then, we meet in late April in NYC and discuss all of the shows. Our goal for that meeting is to leave with a list of the 20 best, most diverse, exciting, fresh new musicals we can find that represents the breadth of work happening out there but also moves the art form forward. Then we repeat the process with the Top 20…but this time every show is read by every committee member.
By mid-June we will have taken 160 shows, divided them by 20 and gotten the 8 shows we will present at the Festival in October. It is a big task, a daunting task…but anyone on the Committee will tell you: it is a whole lot of fun!