Festival Alumni in the News

This week, Time Magazine released their list of the Top 10 Plays and Musicals of 2017, and two musicals in the NAMT family made the list! Come From Away (NAMT Festival ’13) by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and The Band’s Visit (NFNM Cycle 8 Production Grant recipient) by David Yazbeck and Itamar Moses respectively claimed the fourth and second spots on the list.
Both shows have been supported by NAMT members throughout their development processes. After its 2013 Festival presentation, Come From Away was first produced at La Jolla Playhouse with Junkyard Dog Productions, both NAMT members. The Broadway production claims seven NAMT members as producers, including Junkyard Dog Productions, Michael Rubinoff with Sheridan College, Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Spencer Ross, Yonge Street Theatricals, Wendy Gillespie & La Jolla Playhouse. The Band’s Visit received a Production Grant from the National Fund for New Musicals for its Off Broadway production at NAMT member Atlantic Theater Company, and bookwriter Itamar Moses is a NAMT Festival alumnus for his 2012 Festival show Nobody Loves You. Additionally, two plays produced by NAMT member The Public Theater were included in the list, including their production of Sweat which was named the number one play of the year.

The stupefying boredom of forgotten hamlet in the Israeli desert, where the residents are jolted out of their trance-like existence by a visiting band of Egyptian musicians. The inhabitants of a remote rocky island off the coast of Canada warmly embrace the passengers of 38 jets stranded there in the wake of 9/11… In this most polarized of years, a number of the best productions celebrate man’s shared humanity and the possibility of even the most entrenched enemies finding common ground and a path forward.

Visit the Time Magazine website to see the full list.

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