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FROM THE ROAD: A Coast to Coast Summer

October 2, 2012

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting the chance to visit our members around the country. There is no better way to take the pulse of the industry and help discover new ways for us to serve our members than to meet them on their home turf, see their shows and meet their staffs. Summer is the busiest travel time for the NAMT staff because it is when the number of shows skyrocket in our member theatres. My summer was filled with 10 productions (7 of them premieres), 2 workshops and 6 readings from New York to California, from Vermont to Tennessee. We a few Festival shows and National Fund for New Musicals (NFNM) grant recipients along the way.

Here is the quick rundown (NAMT member theatres and Festival shows are bolded blue):

MAY

Los Angeles, CA- World premiere of Los Otros at Center Theatre Group
San Diego, CA- World premiere of Nobody Loves You (NAMT Fest ’12, past NFNM Project Development Grant) and Scottsboro Boys at The Old Globe, world premiere of Hands on a Hardbody at La Jolla Playhouse, and the chance to sit in on a rehearsal for Harmony, Kansas (NFNM Production Grant, past Writers Residency Grant) at Diversionary Theatre.
New York, NY- World premiere of February House (past NFNM Project Development Grant) at The Public Theater, reading of Suprema (NFNM Writers Residency Grant) at Ars Nova and Speargrove Presents (NFNM Writers Residency Grant) at New York Theatre Barn

JUNE
Connecticut- Readings of When We Met and String at The O’Neill Theatre Center, production of Mame at Goodspeed Musicals

JULY
New York, NY- Production of Triassic Parq (by Festival alumnus Marshall Pailet) produced by Amas Musical Theatre and New Musical Development Foundation at SoHo Rep
East Haddam, CT- Final dress of Carousel at Goodspeed Musicals
Poughkeepsie, NY- Workshop of Murder Ballad (by Fest alumna Julia Jordan) at Vassar Powerhouse

AUGUST
Rhinebeck, NY- Reception for Beatsville (NAMT Fest ’08) at Rhinebeck Writers Retreat
Palo Alto, CA- TheatreWorks Festival of New Works with readings of Being Earnest and Triangle (NAMT Fest ’12) and a developmental production of The Trouble With Doug (NAMT Fest ’10)

SEPTEMBER

New York, NY- Reading of notes to MariAnne (NAMT Fest ’11) at New York Theatre Workshop
Weston, VT- World premiere of Pregnancy Pact (NAMT Fest ’11) at Weston Playhouse Theatre Co.
Crossville, TN- Regional premiere of Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge (NAMT Fest ’11) at Cumberland County Playhouse
New York, NY- Broadway Bound concert at Merkin Hall featuring songs from Watt?!? and The Dogs of Pripyat, both from the 2011 Festival

And I am pretty sure I am missing a few.

I got a lot more out of these trips than a wallet full of receipts and slight confusion as to my time zone. I was fortified in my belief that our members and alumni are creating, producing and exploring the best musical theatre in the country. They are continually engaging, challenging and building audiences through their great work. They are not resting on their laurels but pushing forward.

It is very hard to find a show today that does not have the NAMT stamp somewhere on it…and that makes me very proud to be just a small part of any show that adds to the crazy tapestry of musicals across the country. The great work continues all over the country, and I’m the lucky one who gets to take in at least a fraction of it.

Branden Huldeen
New Works Director

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Recording the demo

October 1, 2012

A guest entry from Julianne Wick Davis, composer of Southern Comfort.

Years ago, a friend showed me a YouTube video of a local cable talent show from the early 80’s. One of the acts was a woman with a thick cockney accent who had a two-sided conversation with herself about demos. “What’s a demo, you say?” And then answering herself, “Well, Libby, it’s a recordin’ of me singin’ voice.” I appreciate this woman’s ability to boil it down to the essence, but geez, if only demos were that simple! The demo is the calling card for your show, and since the score of your show doesn’t come to life unless someone plays it and sings it, demos are obviously the most important piece of representation musicals have.

Recently my collaborator, Dan Collins and I thought it was best to expand upon an earlier version of our demo for SOUTHERN COMFORT as part of our preparation for the NAMT Festival of New Musicals. We recorded 8 songs several years ago, but since then the show had grown and changed and some of the recordings weren’t even relevant anymore. Our goal was to record as many songs from the show as possible, keeping several of the recordings from the earlier demo. This kind of goal involves a lot of people and the merging of many schedules, but it is worth every hurdle to get it right.

Once the list of songs was made, the negotiating of the schedules began. Since our show uses all acoustic instruments, we decided it was best to record everyone live together as opposed to laying down different tracks. I had a window of about 7 hours one day where I could gather David Lutken, Joel Waggoner, Lizzie Hagstedt, and Jeffrey D. Smith. Because I had such an amazing team of musicians, we ended up recording the instrumental tracks for 11 songs in under 5 hours. Having everyone play together doesn’t leave you a lot of room for fixing any errors. If one person screws up, you have to start over. The guitar player’s best take might be the bass player’s worst take, but we took our chances—it was too important to us to have that feeling of a live performance on the demo.

Which brings up the question: “To orchestrate or not orchestrate?” Dan and I decided a long time ago when we did the first round of demo recordings for SOUTHERN COMFORT that the orchestration was important in understanding the story and tone of the show. Early in our writing careers I remember hearing people say that it’s not important to have orchestration on your demos, after all, they’re demos. Our experience has shown us otherwise. Orchestration on your demo helps the producer/artistic director/new works director understand the aesthetic quality of your musical.

Orchestration was not a question for us; however, one element of our recording that lead to a lot of discussion was whether or not to include any dialogue in songs that contained scenes. Does it make no sense otherwise? Will it sound like a bad radio play? Is it the best idea for this particular show? We decided that even though we had an amazing production at Cap21 in 2011, we could not call it our definitive production because we have made changes since then and probably will continue to make changes as we seek development. We didn’t want to be left with songs on a demo that suffer from “older-draftitis,” so we decided to leave out the dialogue.

Oh, I should mention that we did not go into a fancy studio. We had a tiny budget. We asked friends who had played/sung the score before, many from our Cap21 cast last year. Instrumentals were done in a classroom at the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Vocals were done in the small recording studio in the department, although at one point they were going to be done in my living room in Inwood.

What this demo experience has taught me is that all you really need is a decent room, a quality microphone, and people who are well-rehearsed. Now, THAT is boiling it down to the essence, Libby…

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Initial Casting and Songwriters Showcase announced!

September 17, 2012

We are so happy with all of the amazing actors, directors and music directors who have signed on to join the Festival this year! The Festival employs over 100 artists every year and it takes considerable manhours to find the right actors, directors and music directors for each piece.
We have some of our regulars back (Chris Hoch, Kenita Miller, Marie-France Arcilla), we reunite faces we have not seen at the Festival in a few years (Robin de Jesus, Sarah Stiles, Kate Rockwell) and we welcome new faces to our Festival (Annette O’Toole, Bryce Ryness, Demond Green). I am always humbled by all of the talented artists who decide to come work with us for two weeks to help give these eight new musicals the best reading possible! You can read about our initial casting announcement on playbill.com.
Additionally, we announced last week our line-up for the Songwriters Showcase and our hosts, Nancy Opel and Joe DiPietro. Joe and Nancy have known each other for years and I know that they will be great hosts for the audience and writers, alike. This year, the Showcase is filled with shows that have been developed by NAMT member theatres. Many of the shows have been developed by multiple NAMT members which shows the strength of our membership to help push shows forward, together. It will be a wonderful display of the great work being done around the country to further the field. You can read the full line-up and history of this year’s showcase shows at Broadwayworld.com.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. We still have about 2 dozen roles to cast and announce, plus the line-up of singers for the Showcase. The Festival promises to be another stellar two days of musical theatre heaven, and it would not be possible without all of our extraordinary artists!

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: On The Road To NAMT Fest--Musical Theatre Bytes

September 13, 2012

“On The Road To NAMT” will be a special sub-series of the Festival Countdown featuring blogs from Tom Mizer (Book & Lyrics of TRIANGLE) that will also be featured as part of his blog The Broadway Blog.
If anyone asked me what to look for in a great composing partner, I’d tell them to seek out many of the qualities of my own long-time collaborator Curtis Moore. Find someone who is talented (clearly), fun to be around (long hours together in small rooms), committed (to the theater, not a mental institution) – and, most importantly, someone who has a degree in electrical engineering. Seriously, skip Juilliard and start trolling MIT.

Kooman & Dimond prep 2011 NAMT Festival’s “Dani Girl”. Image via namt.org.

As we dive into preparations for our NAMT Festival presentation, I have realized that this is a highly technical operation. Just gathering our team for a prep meeting is like tasking a bunch of liberal arts students with landing the Rover on Mars. I’m in Brooklyn; Curtis is music directing a show in Kansas City; our music director was in Pittsfield, MA; our festival consultants (NAMT members assigned to shepherd us through the process) are based in Chicago and Princeton; and our fearless director was in transit somewhere in the American Southwest (though, at times, even she wasn’t sure exactly where).
We have to use scheduling programs to find overlapping minutes across time zones and rehearsals. We must turn to web chat, skype and conference call technology to simulate round table discussions.
To cast the show, we don’t need a casting director; we need an I.T. expert. Headshots are emailed. Song files are downloaded. YouTube videos are shared. (A free bit of advice to any actors reading this; type your name into YouTube and clean house. This is how you “audition” now. If there is a seemingly drunk karaoke version of “Love is a Battlefield” anywhere near the top of your page, remove it…unless you are interested in being seen for Rock of Ages.) In fact, we will likely have not met nor even seen in person some of our actors until the first day of rehearsal.
Even the act of writing is a tech game. The NAMT presentations are 45-minute cuttings so we are currently trying out different versions of a script that will give a flavor of the show and still feel like a coherent event. This requires a lot of trial and error. We use online drop boxes and “versioning” software to keep track of and give everyone on the team access to different drafts. (Do I sound like I know what I mean in the last sentence? I don’t. Ask Curtis.) We are also prepping some new song demos which Curtis will capture and mix remotely on a laptop recording studio far from a sound proof booth and an orchestra.
And I haven’t even touched on the need for publicity through social networking, reminding the industry to come, and so much more. It’s a brave new world. To be in music theatre today, the genius bar you need to reach is less Sondheim and more Apple Store.

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Making the Cut

September 12, 2012

A guest entry from Justin Levine, writer of BONFIRE NIGHT

“Kill your darlings.” – William Faulkner
Cutting down a script is like tending a garden. You plant your seeds and in just days you have a plethora of sprouts all trying to squeeze in and get their sunlight. It’s exciting, it’s alive, it’s bursting with seemingly unlimited potential. The truth is, if you let every seedling that sprouts grow into a full plant, you will end up with a garden bed full of weak, undernourished and crowded plants. When the plants first sprout, you are supposed to pull all but one seedling per plant. That way, the remaining seedlings will have more space, get more nutrients and grow to their fullest potential. In the same way, if you cram your play with ideas, you run the risk of having your piece filled with weaker, unfinished story lines and arcs. Sometimes, it seems that none of your ideas can be sacrificed. It’s daunting.

For the NAMT festival, the writers are charged with creating a 45-minute cut of their show,either a section of the piece or a 45-minute “trailer” version. Both have their challenges. If you show a section, while you lose the ability to complete character arcs and storylines, you have the opportunity to leave the audience wanting more. With a 45-minute version of the show, you have to cut down your show by at least 50% and still manage to convey the most essential ideas, without sacrificing the pace and style. I chose to do a section of the show. It wasn’t an easy decision, as there are clear pros and cons to both options. My first instinct was to cut most of the book and make a concert version of Bonfire Night. It seemed the simplest and most entertaining option. The problem, however, was that I didn’t write an opera, and much of the storytelling is in the book. My biggest fear was that without the ending of my show, my presentation would lack the payoff of the story’s closure. Ultimately, it became clear that Bonfire Night is best served by giving the first half of the show the room it needs to set the tone and pace, without sacrificing story.

I’ve learned that with both options, you are working on a “trailer” of your piece and whether you tell your whole story or part of it, the job is the same. In 45 minutes you have to give audiences a taste of what’s in store. It’s an opportunity not only to show people what you’ve already created, but also to demonstrate the potential for growth in your piece. What initially felt like a sacrifice caused me to focus on fewer ideas, giving room to those that are more essential to the storytelling.

To read more about BONFIRE NIGHT and the other shows in this year’s Festival, go to www.namt.org/festival.

NAMT News

It's Almost Conference Time!

September 7, 2012

It’s been a very busy and productive summer in the NAMT office. We’ve been all over the country visiting members, and attending conferences and festivals, yet somehow we’ve managed to get a lot of projects done here in the office, planning for the months ahead and working on ways to serve you better. But now it’s my favorite time of year. We’re starting to get a break from the NYC summer heat, and better yet, the Fall Conference and Festival of New Musicals are right around the corner!
I often say that NAMT’s best member benefit is its members, and the Fall Conference is when you all prove me right. This will be my 5th one (!), and every year I’m inspired by your insight, passion and warmth.
This year, we’re in a brand new venue with spectacular views of Times Square (above) and Central Park, and we’ll be taking a new dual-track approach to the rewards and challenges of producing new musicals from the perspective of both artistic and managerial leaders. I can’t wait to see what comes out of these smaller group discussions, and what happens when everyone comes together for full group sessions and, of course, cocktails!
To whet your appetite, check out video highlights of past conferences at https://namt.org/conference-video.aspx (member login required). We’ve recently updated this page with clips from 2011 and 2012, including last year’s popular Hal Prince keynote address. For details on this year’s conference and to register (for the Festival, too!) go to https://namt.org/conference. Rates will increase on September 17, so don’t wait too long!
I can’t wait to see you next month!

NAMT News

New Work In Progress: GIRLS VS BOYS

August 21, 2012

An interview with Henry Fonte, Chair of the University of Miami’s Department of Theatre Arts, about their upcoming production of Girls vs Boys, written by Nathan Allen, Chris Mathews, Jake Minton & Kevin O’Donnell, this November 1-11.

Girls vs Boys explores the complicated lives of modern high schoolers as they manage their way through the funny, violent and emotionally turbulent period of adolescence. The story focuses on Casey, a young man who distances himself from not only his fellow classmates but also his sister, Sam, a freshman at his high school. Casey and Sam share a dark past that pulls them together while still keeping them at arm’s length.
How did you find the show?
This season we decided to look for a new contemporary musical that could be developed by the University and The Adrienne Arsht Center. We were on our way to producing something else when the negotiations collapsed. Scott Shiller, our co-producer at The Arsht, who already had a very strong relationship with The House Theatre of Chicago, had seen the original workshop of Girls vs Boys by our good friends at Northwestern University’s American Musical Theatre Project, and suggested we pursue it. Girls vs Boys made sense on many creative levels and also has the potential to attract young, diverse, multi-cultural ticket buyers.
What drew you to the show and how does it fit with the goals of your program?
Girls vs Boysfocuses an unblinking eye on the pent up rage, sexuality, fear and humor that all young people experience. Its themes are universal and, still today, swept under the carpet as we adults try to fight these feelings through medicating kids into NOT feeling, or at least not displaying or “acting out” on those feelings. The most obvious fit is the fact that the cast is exclusively young. There are no adult characters. It also fits with our mission, which in part is to develop new, edgy and exciting work for the American Theatre. This creative collaboration with one of the premier performing arts centers in the southern United States, which also happens to be in our own backyard, offers students a paid, real-world working experience on a world-class stage and ensures that they will have a competitive edge upon graduation.
How will the show be developed while at U of Miami?
We will first do a two-week workshop with the full cast, our creative team and the writing team from The House Theatre. This workshop will concern itself with the story, and how the story is presently served by the book, songs and the current structure. Nothing will be off the table. After that, we will begin a four-week rehearsal towards the production. The show will be co-produced by us and The Arsht, where it will play, in its beautiful, state-of-the-art Carnival Studio Theater.
In addition to featuring students-as-professionals on stage, the production also provides students majoring in technical theatre and design to work side-by-side with the Arsht Center’s production team–helping to create professional sets, costumes and lighting design; assisting stage managers and other key production positions.
What is the thing you are most excited to see when the show gets in front of an audience?
Like all great art, Girls vs Boys has the potential to be highly polarizing. The subscription audiences at both The Arsht and UM’s Ring Theatre, plus our students and the single ticket buyers will form a wildly diverse audience demographic. We look forward to seeing how different age groups react and empathize with the action unfolding before them. While we hope to please as many of these constituencies as possible, we also hope the show will retain some of its raw energy, force and the dangerous electric current that runs through the material. Also, the rock score is pretty exciting.

Why should your fellow members swing by Miami to catch the show?
If we do our job, Girls vs Boyswill become, or be on its way to becoming, a very hot and exciting new property. We can’t have too many of those. It’s new theatre. It’s our job as theatre artists to support and encourage these new voices in as many stages of development as possible. And it’s Miami in November…What’s not to like?

For more information about Girls vs Boys, please click here.

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: GOLDEN BOY OF THE BLUE RIDGE

August 21, 2012

An interview with John Fionte, New Works Director at Cumberland County Playhouse, about their upcoming production of 2011 Festival show Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge, by Peter Mills and Cara Reichel, playing Aug. 23-Oct. 26.

A pitch-dark comedy with the kick of moonshine, Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge transplants J.M. Synge’s classic The Playboy of the Western World to 1930s Appalachia. Bluegrass music and backwoods mayhem abound in this coming-of-age story about a slapdash murder, a whirlwind romance and a most unlikely hero.

What drew Cumberland County Playhouse to Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge?
Producing Director Jim Crabtree first became aware of Golden Boy in 2009 through the authors’ agent, and he asked me to pay particular attention to it when the show was presented in the 2011 Festival. We both felt that Golden Boy‘s rural Appalachian setting, combined with its bluegrass score, made the show something worth investigating.
Why is it a great show for your audience?
The Cumberland Plateau is a part of rural Appalachia. This region is fiercely proud of its rich musical heritage…and of the Scots-Irish roots of its culture. Peter Mills’ compelling score celebrates both the contemporary bluegrass musical idiom, along with that music’s deep Celtic roots. Additionally, our audience loves shows with onstage musicians, as is evidenced by the perennial popularity of Smoke on the Mountain, which is in its 19th consecutive year here at the Playhouse. Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge has all of that, and it’s fresh, new and exciting. I hope it appeals to Smokefans and beyond.
Are there any special approaches you are taking to the show?
Just as Pete and Cara wrote a play that’s an intricate blend of the traditional and the contemporary, I’ve tried to give equal weight to both of those things in terms of the production. The choreography, staging, design aesthetic… all those choices are firmly grounded in Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, but filtered through a contemporary eye. I’ve also been careful to always consider Golden Boy‘s Irish roots. While it’s not particularly present in Playboy, Synge was part of an Irish literary tradition that was steeped in a sense of enchantment, of magical realism. I’ve tried to bring a sense of that to Golden Boy.
What are you most excited about when Golden Boyfinally hits your stage?
I’m eagerly anticipating that first audience reaction. Golden Boy is so full of things that our rural Tennessee audiences love; but it’s also full of surprises, of fresh new sights and sounds. I think it will be an electric experience.
Why should people check out the Playhouse and Golden Boy?
Cumberland County Playhouse is truly a gem that’s nestled in a rural part of the country, so it remains undiscovered to some people. It’s always a joy to hear first-time patrons express their surprise and delight to find such professionalism and exceptional production values in a small town. I hope that audiences will experience the same sense of excitement and delight when they experience Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge for the first time. It’s really a remarkable musica,l and it deserves to be discovered by a much wider audience.

For more information, please visit www.ccplayhouse.com.

NAMT News

Playing to Win

August 20, 2012

A guest post by Music Director, Orchestrator and Composer Eli Zoller. Eli was the Music Director for Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge at the 2011 Festival of New Musicals. He asked if he could respond to Adam’s recent post, which itself was a response to an article on Howard Sherman’s blog. We were more than happy to keep the conversation going!

I’d been struggling with my identity in the theatre for a while. For the multitude of professionals in this business, we’ve all had times where we’ve looked in the mirror and asked the daunting question, “how do I ‘fit’ in this industry?” My question wasn’t about my abilities on stage, confidence in my background, or my taste in current theatrical trends (though all weighed on my mind). I asked myself: “Am I in this as a dedicated professional, or as a dedicated fan?”

I didn’t grow up a theatre fan; I grew up a sports fan. My heroes didn’t score music, they scored touchdowns. However, my love was music and theatre, and today I find myself working in the very field that combines those two wonderful entertainment mediums into the perfect story-telling mechanism known as the musical. However, upon arriving in New York professionally, I quickly became frustrated to find that unbridled and unmatchable creativity had been replaced with add-water-and-stir box office gimmickry; these were not championship teams.

As a sports fan, there are two kinds of teams that the majority of fellow fans root for: the powerhouses (teams with a history of dominance in their sport) and the underdogs (teams that, on paper, don’t match up to the others but still possess the intoxicating will to win…and every so often, they do!). Then there are the teams in the middle; the teams that lack some sort of spark or drive or full-bodied will to compete at the highest level. They think they can bare the same power and skill as the powerhouses, but don’t know how to properly execute. They think they’re better than the underdogs, but are too afraid of failure to go all-in against the toughest challenges. Instead, they play an over-calculated and timid game with underwhelming spirit, overburdened by outside opinion. With all of this focus on how not to fail, they don’t trust their fans to be enough of a motivation for them to just go out and play their hearts out. As a result, their fans abandon them, broken-hearted.

Cast off from the love of theatre audiences of all ages for the powerhouses and underdogs, these “middle teams” are the equivalent of commercial musical theatre today. So far as the entire industry is concerned, the conversation about how to improve has got to start focusing around our honesty between us and our fans; otherwise, we risk losing them for good; the clock is ticking. We as theatrical professionals on all fronts seem intimidated by our surroundings and outside competition (television, film, iTunes, even reality shows), and that’s exactly what turns our audiences away. We shouldn’t be focus-grouping to decide what the next hit Broadway show should be; we should simply be aware of our culture and choose how to affect that culture with our craft as opposed to the other way around. People don’t buy tickets to sporting events because they know the final score before the game starts; they want to see the action, feel the tension, experience the magic. We’re robbing our audiences of that opportunity every time we ask ourselves “what sells today?” “how can we sound more like…?” “has it succeeded yet?” Of course, it has been argued that the quality of the material is the constant culprit, but to what extent can we see a future for our industry if the best of our abilities are being spent on high-quality duplicates of previous art?

I often feared that we’d need to build from the ground up a new musical theatre for Broadway’s future, but it’s out there; it just needs greater support and the time to start is now. It’s certainly what our audiences expect of us as artists, and we owe it to them to be honest, eager, and unafraid to create an original musically theatrical experience. It’s time we admitted it: we’re underdogs! …and we should rejoice! Audiences love an underdog! But being an underdog means playing like one. We need producers who will stop predicting box offices and start believing in artists. We need writers who’ll start believing in their individualities instead of trying to sound like what’s popular. That, and only that, is where the beginnings of a new commercial musical theatre will start. Pundits like Howard Sherman see the proper ways to view our art form on Broadway for potential, not just product. NAMT offers new voices to audiences by giving proud musical theatre underdogs a stage that has the ability to reach across the country. We may lose a lot before we start winning; but I’d rather leave it all on the field than come away with an average and forgettable record. Those are the teams I root for: the underdogs, the fighters, the believers; they never lose the appreciation of their fans, and the legacy of both them and their game lives on forever! It’s a tough game, but I’m a die-hard fan and a die-hard professional, and I’m ready to play!

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NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Promoting a show at the Festival

August 16, 2012

A guest blog entry from writer Gaby Alter, from Nobody Loves You, about promoting readings and shows to the industry. Gaby was recently in the Festival with his show Band Geeks! in 2009.

A demo recording for a musical is an odd thing. So much of the impact of a song in a musical depends on it being experienced live. The facial expressions of the actor often provide the subtext, or fight the subtext of the song. And hearing a score played live under the actor is one of the electrifying things about theater. It lets us know that the art is being created, in part, in front of us. It begs our active participation in imagining the story.

The fact is, however, that a demo recording is now critical to the fate of any musical. It represents the show to a producer, or a literary manager or artistic director, who are too busy to come to a reading (which can only happen in a blue moon anyway, given the resources it takes); or who live outside New York. If it’s good, a demo will transmit the piece’s musical world and vocabulary. It will get people excited to see how the musical would look on stage.

For good or ill, the difference between a good quality demo and a so-so one is usually a large factor in a piece’s perception. And, in an escalating arms race of quality, demos are now usually expected to be fully produced, often near-album quality pieces with vocal and instrumental arrangements, mixing, EQ-ing, etc. As the need for a high-quality demo continues to rise, and the level of quality expected, so too does the cost, which generally falls on the artists.

To help this situation, NAMT has started a RocketHub campaign to help cover the costs of printing the demos of its musicals. Supporters of a specific musical, and those who care more broadly about the development of new musicals, can donate towards this cost, knowing that they are helping with a critical step in the process of realizing our shows onstage. With hundreds of CDs to give away to industry professionals, a musical’s chance of finding its backers at NAMT and after it have risen greatly.

A small note: NAMT is the one festival where all costs related to the reading are covered. Once you’re in, you’re in–there are no rental fees, production costs, actors’ stipends to pay. However, there still remains the cost of the demo, which is technically not part of the reading. And even at NAMT, not everyone can make it to every reading; many will still need to hear a recording. And those who do see a show they love still need to go back home and sell the show they loved to the rest of their staff.
So the demo remains an indispensable tool at NAMT.

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: The importance of demos

August 13, 2012

An important message from Brendan Milburn, composer of Sleeping Beauty Wakes, about why the writers need to have demos at the Festival.

Want to help the writers and their shows?

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: From the novel to the classroom to the stage to the Festival

August 9, 2012

A post from Beth Turcotte, bookwriter of The Circus in Winter, about where the show came from and its connection to arts education.

The Circus in Winter is the product of an immersive learning project developed with support from the Virginia Ball Center, Ball State University in the spring of 2010. The class consisted of fourteen remarkable students from five different disciplines from across the campus. Over the course of three months, the students adapted the novel, The Circus in Winter by Cathy Day, into a musical. Now, anyone who has ever directed, produced or taught, knows that some days working with a group of creative folks is like herding cats. Then comes the day when you figure out which student is Antares, the anchor, and you become Ben Hur taking the curve with all four white horses perfectly lined up.

Image from the Ball State University production

Over the next two years concert performances took place on campus, at the Peru International Circus Hall of Fame and at Drury Lane-Oak Brook, Chicago, Illinois. This past fall, Circus had a fully realized production at Ball State University. This production was also an American College Theatre Festival entry. Circus was selected as a regional participant for ACTF at the University of Illinois in January 2012 and recognized with eight Kennedy Center/ACTF Awards including Outstanding New Work this past May.

Although the students have all graduated and moved on to new adventures, they will forever be linked with this project. Ben Clark, composer and lyricist, remains with Circus and will anchor it around its next curve.

The Circus in Winter is arts education at its best.

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Directors and Music Directors announced

August 9, 2012

We are so excited to welcome many of this year’s directors and musical directors for the Festival!
Bonfire Night will be directed by Sam Buntrock (Tony nominated for the revival of Sunday in the Park with George) with music direction by Kimberly Grigsby (Spring Awakening).
Funked Up Fairy Tales will be directed by Jerry Dixon (who directed Red Clay in ’10 and Barnstormer in ’08 for us) with music direction by Steve Marzullo.
Nobody Loves You will be directed by Michelle Tattenbaum who directed its premiere at The Old Globe.
Sleeping Beauty Wakes will again be directed by Rebecca Taichman, who also helmed the McCarter Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse productions.
Southern Comfort will be reunited with the director and music director from their CAP21 workshop production last fall, Tom Caruso and Emily Otto, respectively.
Triangle will be directed by Meredith McDonough, who is directing a reading of it this weekend at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.
The rest of the directors and music directors will be announced in the coming weeks.
Click here to read playbill.com’s article about our creative teams.
It is so great to have so many people returning to the Festival and to welcome many new faces as well!

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Welcome back...

August 6, 2012

A special video blog entry from Brendan Milburn, composer of Sleeping Beauty Wakes, who is returning to the NAMT Festival after last presenting Striking 12 in 2004 and Watt?!? in 2011.

Help out this year’s writers, like Brendan, by supporting our RocketHub campaign to raise $5,000 to make all of the demos for this year’s 8 songwriting teams.

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: The Origins of BLEEDING LOVE

August 2, 2012

A post from Jason Schafer, bookwriter of Bleeding Love about where the show came from and what is means to his show to be accepted into the Festival.

I’ve written a musical and I think hope pray know it’s amazing… Now what? For me, this question seems to surface when nearing the completion of the first full draft. Maybe it’s my brain putting off those final bits of work – before the rewriting begins, of course. Or maybe, for the first time, so much of the show is actually written, it finally seems real. It exists. Not just in my head where it’s been for some time, but on paper. It’s suddenly possible to visualize actors stopping the show with the songs, to imagine audiences laughing at the jokes or being moved (to tears?) by the characters and the story.

Bleeding Love began with a desire to write something that offered audiences a huge emotional experience. I brainstormed a list of my most peculiar fascinations – anything that ever elicited a powerful and preferably mysterious response in me. This included Brooklyn brownstones, the sound of a cello, Klaus von Brücker from the films of Bruce La Bruce, my childhood piano teacher, the fairytales of Oscar Wilde, my mother’s greenhouse, the line art of Aubrey Beardsley, longhaired men and punk goddess Nina Hagen, to name more than a few. Hoping this unusual combination of elements might have a similar effect on others, I fashioned them into a narrative, but the result was so rarified, it seemed no one but me could possibly appreciate it.

Harris (lyrics) and Art (music) initially rejected my “rose story.” “We want to write something commercial,” Harris said. But as the three of us continued to talk about it, Bleeding Love’s very strangeness seemed to be its greatest selling point. And commercial or not, it was a show all three of us wanted to see. A year later, when we sat down in a New York rehearsal studio to read it through beginning to end, it was still starkly unique, but our collaboration had transformed it into something bigger, something more accessible, and – dare I say it? – something commercial. Now what?

Bleeding Love was a finalist for the Richard Rodgers Award and now, the first public performance of any kind will be at NAMT’s Festival of New Musicals. This is an extraordinary opportunity to present a show with a first-rate cast and director before an industry audience. Because of this, Bleeding Love has the best possible chance of finding the right developmental path, whatever that may be. NAMT’s guidance will allow us to find the right home and the right audience for our show. And personally, it’s a thrill and an honor to be in the company of an amazing roster of writers whose work I have loved and admired. Or at least read about on playbill.com.

The crazy list that started this journey did not include writing musicals, but it should have. For me, NAMT’s recognition and support is a dream come true. Now what?

NAMT News

New Works In Progress: LOVE STORY

July 26, 2012

An interview with director Annabel Bolton about Walnut Street Theatre’s upcoming production of Love Story, written by Erich Segal with book and lyrics by Stephen Clark, and music and additional lyrics by Howard Goodall, this September 4-October 21.

Inspired by Erich Segal’s best-selling iconic novel, and one of the most romantic films of all time, this life-affirming musical will have you remembering the first time you fell in love. There was music in the air—and a feeling so powerful that no one and nothing could take it away. That music is in the air again with Love Story, the Musical. When Oliver Barrett IV wanders into a library in search of a book, he discovers Jenny Cavilleri. They came from different worlds. He was a Harvard man, she was Radcliffe. He was rich, she was poor. But they fell in love. This is their story. A celebration of love and life, Love Story, the Musicalwill win your heart… and it may just break it.

How does Love Story differ from the movie and the novel?
Other than the most obvious difference that it is a musical, the Erich Segal story itself is intact and holds all the memorable moments from the book and the movie. Enthusiastic fans may notice some differences that help the movement of the story in this staged version (for instance, the compression of two scenes into one to help the narrative flow). This very emotional story lends itself so well to being a musical and particularly with Howard Goodall’s delicate and evocative score.

How has the show evolved from Chichester to the West End to the U.S. premiere?
The essence of the original Chichester production remains. The writer Stephen Clark and composer Howard Goodall, along with the original creative team honed and refined their work for the move to London by cutting and adding both musically and literarily. The Chichester stage was an apron stage and a very intimate audience/performer experience, so the production also faced the very practical challenge of moving to a proscenium theatre. The loss of intimacy was a concern, but it didn’t lose any emotional impact in the move—if anything it enhanced it.

What are you and the writing team hoping to work on while preparing for this production?

There will be very little changed from London’s West End to the Walnut. We have a much bigger playing space in Philadelphia so there will be changes related to that in choreography and staging. Rehearsals in a new space with a new company always, and indeed must, generate change. Different actors bring wonderful new things to a production.

What drew you to this story?
I think anyone would be hard pushed to ignore such an emotional roller coaster of a tale. There aren’t many people that can’t relate to the main themes of love and loss and also to the wonderful, and sometimes difficult, relationships with our parents.

What is one thing that will surprise audiences who come to see the show?
I’m not sure I want to give this away… so I won’t. I will say that a story with such sad central themes can be uplifting, but I think even the most stoic of audiences will be surprised at how many tissues they need!

For more information about Love Story, please visit www.walnutstreettheatre.org.

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: LIZZIE BORDEN

July 26, 2012

An interview with Steven Cheslik-deMeyer, Tim Maner and Alan Stevens Hewitt about what is new with their 2010 Festival Show, Lizzie (other than its title!).

What was the audience’s response to Lizzie after the Festival?
Audience responses have been incredibly gratifying. At the Festival, the tremendous show of support from the NAMT community was overwhelming—there were so many great moments. One of our favorites: an older man came up to Alan saying “You know what you’ve done here, don’t you? This is Tommy meets Sweeney Todd!” Well, besides the fact that we love both of those and it’s very flattering to be compared to them, we’ve always seen Lizzieas somehow situated exactly between those two worlds, so for this guy to get that was a great sign for us that we’d succeeded.

What has changed in the show since the Festival?
We’ve made a handful of tweaks and a couple of bigger changes. There are 2 whole new songs. One is a solo for Lizzie, “This Is Not Love,” near the beginning of the show that we hope gives the audience a clearer idea of where she’s starting from emotionally, psychologically. We also replaced the ending with a less ambiguous statement of Lizzie’s apotheosis into legend, “Into Your Wildest Dreams.” And we have officially dropped “Borden” from the title—the show is now called simply Lizzie.

You recently had a change of commercial producers. How did that come about and what was the decision process like for you to decide to change things up?

We’ve been lucky enough to have very passionate and committed people believe in and support Lizziethroughout her development. We are psyched to now be working with Brisa Trinchero, Van Dean and Kenny Howard, whose producing credits among them include Peter and the Starcatcher, Evita, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, How to Succeed…, Bonnie & Clyde and others. We met Brisa and Van through NAMT, of course, and Kenny through Van. Lizzieis not a conventional musical and this team really gets it.

Baldwin Wallace University and PlayhouseSquare recently did a production of Lizzie in Cleveland. What did you guys learn from hearing the show on college voices?
Vicky Bussert has some ferociously talented charges in her care and she gets knock-out performances from them! What was especially fun for us was that she double-cast the show, so we got to see back-to-back performances by different casts but with the same direction, staging, choreo, design, etc. It’s nice to see, despite how tightly constructed and through-composed the show is, how much wiggle-room there still is for the actors. It was also great to experience the show with college audiences, who had no reservations about cheering, applauding and otherwise reacting to it like the intense rock concert/theatre hybrid it is.

Village Theatre is preparing for a developmental production this August, following a reading at their Festival last year. What do you hope to learn from this process?
Often the most important stuff you learn is stuff you didn’t anticipate, so it’s hard to say. We’ll experience working with a bunch of new people. The band, with the exception of our MD Matt Webb, will be local musicians. There will be three new cast members, two of whom we haven’t met yet (also local performers) and the great Carrie Manolakos as Lizzie. We have a new director, Kent Nicholson, and we’re already enjoying working closely with him on preliminaries. We’re also really excited that the amazing Carrie Cimma, who was in our 2009 production and the presentation at NAMT, is returning as Bridget. We’ll be paying close attention to a lot of logistical things, such as sound design—as a bona fide rock-opera, the show places specific demands on sound.

For more information, please visit www.villagetheatre.org

NAMT News

Thinking Outside the Broadway Box

July 10, 2012

Last week on NAMT’s social media outlets, I shared a blog post by Howard Sherman about the state of new musicals on Broadway. If you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend it. Go on, I’ll wait.

Welcome back. Howard’s research is impressive, and for me personally it was nice to have some hard data to back up what I’ve always believed: That musicals based on existing material are nothing new (and since Howard doesn’t go back before 1975, he’s not even talking about all the “golden age” classics that are based on plays and novels), and that we weren’t necessarily more highbrow back in the day. I especially liked this passage:

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with musicals based on movies. When it is done with enough craft, with care and talent, no one begrudges a show its origins, although there is a tendency to now judge the source even before the show is produced. It would also appear that, in many cases, the more successful examples of this genre are shows drawn from lesser-known films; the rush to translate recent hit films hasn’t necessarily meant greater box office success. Barreling ahead, I’ll say that while I think we need original scores lest the craft of musical theatre songwriting be lost, there have been terrifically entertaining and creative shows based on music cobbled together from other sources, whether it be earlier musicals, pop radio or a songwriter’s catalogue. Again, the only question is whether it’s done artfully.

Howard’s post – deliberately, unashamaedly – is about Broadway and only Broadway. As I read, “there simply aren’t enough of the big musical houses available, and so fewer shows get on,” I thought, there are musicals happening everywhere, in far more than 40 houses! As if reading my mind, Howard’s next paragraph was this:

Although I can now speak only anecdotally, I daresay there are more people than ever studying and writing new musicals. In contrast to the golden age of the 40s and 50s, when the skill of writing musicals was learned on the job or through mentorships, we now have undergraduate and graduate programs in musical theatre; the regional theatre network, founded primarily to mount plays, has discovered the artistic and economic appeal of musicals; and there are countless developmental opportunities under a variety of auspices.

Technically, I can only speak anecdotally too – but what great anecdotes I have, from the very lucky position of getting to visit NAMT’s 150 members from coast to coast and see the work they’re doing. I’m inspired to figure out how we might build a survey or study to get hard numbers on this, but I can still say with certainty and no small amount of joy that the new musical is alive and well all over America. If I take issue with anything in Howard’s piece, it’s the word “developmental,” implying (though I don’t think this is what he meant, especially considering this great post about America’s national theatre) that Broadway is the only end point for a musical and that any show that hasn’t been there is still “in development.”

Over 75% of the 288 shows presented in NAMT’s Festival of New Musicals since 1989 have had vibrant lives in regional theatres, been licensed, had cast recordings, and helped their writers to make a living. Only three of those shows have been on Broadway. Broadway is certainly a valuable branding tool for a new musical, to say nothing of the potential national exposure of the Tony Awards telecast, but to suggest that it’s the automatic end goal for a show is to dismiss the amazing work happening all over the country, at NAMT members and beyond.

As Howard rightly points out, “there are more people than ever studying and writing new musicals.” While this means more competition for production opportunities and dollars, it also means an incredible wealth of opportunity for musical theatre fans. In theatres across America and abroad, the new musical is thriving, and lucky audiences get to see new work every season.

I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t problems. As studied extensively in the book Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play (from which we took inspiration for our 2010 Fall Conference), in the current climate of “world-premiere-itis” there is a real challenge in securing continued life for new plays and musicals, and living wages for writers and other artists. The Broadway “stamp of approval” can certainly help the life of a show. But there are signs that this is changing. Several shows from recent Festivals have had multiple productions over the last few years without ever coming to New York. And licensing means these and other shows will be done by schools and smaller professional companies, becoming the favorites of a new generation of performers and audiences.

I grew up in New York, and before working at NAMT I both saw and worked on shows almost exclusively in the city. Even now, it can be all too easy to be blinded by the lights of those marquees just a few blocks away. But now I also have the pleasure and privilege of working with our members nationwide, and seeing what amazing work they do, in many cases providing opportunities for writers to work in a quiet, calm and artistically safe environment rarely found in the high pressure NYC commercial theatre.

These theatres are also cultivating new audience members who are unafraid of new music and new stories, many of whom will never set foot on Broadway. You might say that those of us in New York are the ones who are missing out.

Adam Grosswirth
Membership Director

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

FESTIVAL SHOW UPDATE: Dani Girl

June 27, 2012

An interview with Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond, writers of the Festival ’11 show Dani Girl, about their show, life since the Festival and other projects they are working on.
Dani Girl is the inspiring and humorous story of a young girl’s battle with a life-threatening disease. Far from sitting back and accepting her condition, Dani transforms her struggle into a fantastical adventure. Together with her teddy bear, imaginary guardian angel and movie-obsessed hospital roommate, she battles a personified Cancer across the realms of fantasy and reality as she attempts to get her beloved hair back. Told from a child’s perspective, this provocative musical explores the universal themes of life in the face of death, hope in the face of despair and the indomitable power of imagination.

What was the response to your presentation at the Festival?
We got a terrific response. The feedback we received was incredibly encouraging and it’s generated some great opportunities for the piece, including the chance to participate in the festival at The Human Race Theatre Co. (Aug. 3-5), which we’re thrilled about. Additionally, the Festival has generated several opportunities for us beyond Dani Girl, which have allowed us to begin to develop several new projects. We’ve also made some terrific new contacts that we hope will lead to new opportunities in the future, which came about as a direct result of NAMT.

Did the Festival process make you go back and revise or refine anything in the show?
Absolutely. The process of preparing the piece for the presentation, trimming it down to 45 minutes, helped us to see some potential cuts to the script that we ended up implementing. We’ve also gone back and done some work on the very opening of the show, which we think helps to establish the tone of the piece much more clearly right from the get-go.

What are you hoping to work on while at Human Race?

In addition to seeing how the new changes we’ve made feel up on their feet, we’re looking forward to getting to watch the show in front of a regional American audience. The show has changed quite a bit since the last time we were able to do so, and we’re interested in seeing how people respond.

Why should people come out to Dayton and check out Dani Girl?
We feel that Dani Girlis a theatrical experience unlike any other. It’s a story that needs to be told and it’s told in a way that people don’t expect. If the show works the way we want it to, we think that it has the potential to do most of the things that great theater should do. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll think. You’ll experience the full gamut of human emotion and you’ll come out seeing the world in a different light.

What else is planned for Dani Girl?
We’re working on setting up a number of small regional productions at the moment, as well as a few international ones. Additionally, we’re in the midst of discussions for a potential New York opportunity. Hopefully we’ll be able to say more soon.

Other than Dani Girl, you had residencies at Goodspeed Musicals and at The 5th Avenue Theatre with more coming up at at Trinity Rep and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. What are you working on at these residencies and how have the experiences been?
We’ve been working on a new, original musical called The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes, which tells the story of a man who wakes up to discover that his life has become a musical. Not being the type of man who would see this change as a good thing, he embarks on a journey to escape the world of the musical and get his normal life back.
This project has been a blast to work on. It’s been great to work on something that’s a bit more commercial and more focused on comedy than some of our other work. At the same time, the premise allows us to have fun with a lot of the conventions of musical theater, while simultaneously digging into the heart of what musicals are all about.
The experiences that we’ve had thus far have been terrific. We felt unbelievably supported at Goodspeed and The 5th Avenue. In both cases, we received some incredibly encouraging responses as well as some terrific feedback that has shaped the direction we’re heading in. We’re really looking forward to continuing to develop it at Trinity and Rhinebeck this summer, as well as continuing to develop a couple of other projects that we have in various stages of development.
For more information about Dani Girl, please visit www.koomandimond.com

NAMT News

New Works in Progress: THE TROUBLE WITH DOUG at TheatreWorks

June 27, 2012

An interview with TheatreWorks’ Director of New Works, Meredith McDonough, about their upcoming developmental production of 2010 NAMT Festival show The Trouble with Doug, by Will Aronson and Daniel Maté, as part of the New Works Festival this August.

The Trouble with Doug is a contemporary comedic reimagining of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Thrust together awkwardly under the same roof, Doug, his family and his fiancée all struggle to understand and respond to Doug’s transformation into a giant talking slug.

What drew TheatreWorks to The Trouble with Doug?
When we saw the presentation in the NAMT Festival two years ago, our whole artistic team was crying with laughter. I couldn’t wait to read the full script and was so pleased to see how moving the second act is. It’s that balance of humor and heart that I am always looking for in new work.

Why are you presenting the show as a developmental production vs. a reading?We had offered them a slot in last summer’s New Works Festival, but they had such an exciting opportunity to work on the piece in the United Kingdom with [NAMT member] Royal & Derngate. When I read the new draft following that reading, I could clearly see that the writers were ready to see the piece on its feet and not behind music stands again!

What is the team hoping to work on during the process?

I won’t speak for them, but we have talked about their continuing interest in finding the right balance between the humor and the depth of this family’s drama.

What are you most excited about for The Trouble with Doug?
I just can’t wait to see the slug transformation live onstage!! It’s really going to happen!!

Why should people head west and catch The Trouble with Doug and your festival this year?
This summer’s festival has a fantastic lineup. Alongside the Doug team, we are also hosting Paul Gordon (Fest ’06–Emma) and Jay Gruska, as well as Curtis Moore and Tom Mizer (both, Fest ’08–The Legend of Stagecoach Mary). If you come to our Festival Industry Weekend (Aug. 10-12), you can see all three musicals, our world premiere of Laura Schellhardt’s Upright Grand, and two new play readings, and finish the weekend off with our Meet the Festival Artists panel, where you can hear the teams talk about their processes. Before and after every reading you’re invited to join the artists in our wine lounge, and really, summer in Palo Alto—it doesn’t get any better!!

For more information, please visit www.theatreworks.org.

NAMT News

Sharing Ideas and Putting Them Into Action

June 15, 2012

I got one of my favorite kinds of NAMT emails last week, from Sean Kelly at The 5th Avenue Theatre and Kristin Buie and Nena Theis at North Carolina Theatre. At the recent Spring Conference, several members talked about promotions where subscribers’ seats were tagged with renewal requests when they attended a show, to engage them while they were actually in the theatre. At The 5th, for renewing early and on the spot, they were given a bottle of wine to take home and free parking. Kristin and Nena thought this was an easy enough project to initiate quickly (not that it didn’t require a fair amount of work, identifying subscribers and their seats, for example), and low cost enough (thanks to deals to the theatre on the wine and the parking) to be basically risk-free, so they gave it a shot. I’ll let Kristin tell you how it went:

“Our goal was to bring in $100,000 during the ten-day show run (this is how much we brought in during the first ten days of our renewal period last year by doing our standard renewal mailing). Well, we brought in over $100,000 in the first four performances alone…Our grand total was $536,747.50, including donations from brand new supporters and 44 new subscribers. Our patrons really appreciated the personal attention and convenience to take care of it on the spot at the show.”

Where Kristin, Nena and Sean dream of subscription renewals, I dream of stories like this. One of NAMT’s main goals with our conferences is to send attendees home with ideas they can use, as quickly as possible. We stress adaptability, so what worked for a $21M organization in Seattle can be scaled for a $3.5M organization in North Carolina, or even further for a $5,000 budget with a volunteer staff of two. And of course that works in both directions, taking a grass-roots idea and growing it into something that will work for a larger organization.
I love that Kristin and Nena got something so concrete out of the Spring Conference so quickly, and I love that they shared their success story with Sean and me. It’s proof of the power of this network, and a great reminder of how well risks can pay off, something I’ll definitely be keeping in mind as we plan the 2012-2013 conferences (about which more soon! Watch this space!).

NAMT News

National Fund for New Musicals recipients announced!

June 4, 2012

Congratulations to the 7 member theatres selected to receive grants from
our National Fund for New Musicals this year. In the last 4 years, the Fund has given out 45 grants totaling $197,000.

Production Grants of $10,000 have been awarded to:
Diversionary Theatre(CA) for Harmony, Kansasby Bill Nelson & Anna K. Jacobs
Playwrights Horizons (NY) for Far From Heavenby Scott Frankel, Richard Greenberg & Michael Korie (’89–Blanco)
TheatreWorks (CA) for Wheelhouseby Gene Lewin, Brendan Milburn (’04–Striking 12, ’11–Watt?!?) & Valerie Vigoda (’04–Strking 12).
Project Development Grants between $2,000-$3,000 have been awarded to:
American Musical Theatre Project at Northwestern University (IL) for The Verona Project by Amanda Dehnert.
Center Theatre Group (CA) for a new musical about urban superheroes by Matt Sax.
Dallas Theatre Center (TX) for Stagger Lee by Justin Ellington, Will Power & Daryl Waters.
Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre at University of Oklahoma for Something Wicked This Way Comes by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill (both, ’07–The Story of My Life).
A special thanks to all of our National Fund for New Musicals donors including Stacey Mindich Productions, The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation, The ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund and everyone who contributed in honor of our former Executive Director Kathy Evans.
If you are interested in contributing to the National Fund, please contact Executive Director Betsy King Militello. Donations of all sizes help grow the Fund and provide more grants to new musicals across the country.

Congratulations to all of the members and artists involved in these exciting projects!

NAMT News

New Works In Progress: HERO

June 4, 2012

An interview with Terry James, Executive Producer of The Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, IL, about their upcoming world premiere of Hero by Aaron Thielen (’10–The Bowery Boys) and Michael Mahler (’09–How Can You Run With a Shell On Your Back?), playing June 20-August 19. For more information, visit www.marriotttheatre.com.

Hero is a quirky and poignant new musical that explores those extraordinary moments in ordinary life. It’s the story of Hero Batowski, a 28-year-old struggling comic book artist, living anything but a superhero life. After a life-changing event his senior year in high school, Hero still finds himself living at home with his dad, Al, who runs the family comic book shop in Milwaukee. Things start to change for him when he bumps into an old girlfriend, and with the encouragement of his dad and his best friend and cousin, Kirk, Hero finally has a chance to realize his own dream. Hero features a contemporary pop/rock score that is fresh and exciting.

Why is Hero a good fit for your season?
For more than thirty years our subscribers have enthusiastically embraced new works. Heroprovided an opportunity to give them something unique. From a business point of view it makes sense—a small cast size and a 5-member pop-rock band is certainly appealing! When long-time Marriott director David H. Bell agreed to come on board, I knew we had a formidable and exciting team in place. Hero has also given us a chance to explore the new world of online marketing by collaborating with website and comic book designer and illustrator Charles Riffenburg of Grab Bag Media. For the comic book aficionado that wants more, Charles and Aaron have created a really exciting website, www.heromusical.com, which accompanies the show. It offers audiences an in-depth look into the creation of the show and the world through Hero’s eye, following the entire creative process of bringing this new work to the stage, complete with audio, videos and a blog.

What was the genesis of Hero?

Aaron’s inspiration started with a visit to one of his favorite shops in his hometown of Milwaukee. Aaron said, “there is this great old store across the street from the Allen Bradley building on 1st Street. I’ve always had a love for comics and superheroes, so I started creating this story and placing it in this shop. I thought, ‘what a great set for a show’—the store, the little yard and the family home—their whole world in one block.”

How was this team pulled together?
A longtime advocate of new works, Aaron most recently adapted the Twentieth Century Fox film For The Boys for Marriott. Michael is an acclaimed Chicago-based composer, lyricist and actor. Both are comic book lovers! Aaron told me that from the very beginning, he had always heard Michael’s music in his head as he wrote Hero. We invited Michael to the first reading of Heroand the two joined forces. The second reading, featuring Michael’s music, was presented for 600 subscribers at Marriott. The response was so positive, we decided to put it in our next season.

The show had a workshop at the American Musical Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University. What did you learn about the show while it was at AMTP?
Obviously through multiple drafts and readings, the show evolved with changing storylines and sub-characters. But it was Heather Schmucker and Dominic Missimi’s championing of the show and bringing it to AMTP that gave the piece the chance to find its heart. It is a unique gift for a new work to be given such a talented group of young actors and the opportunity to try material on them, perform it and then go back into rehearsals to make adjustments based on that experience.

Why should everyone make the trip out to Lincolnshire this summer to catch Hero?
With a cast of 9 (optional ensemble) and a pop-rock score, it is a unique piece whose wide appeal has been an exciting surprise. We are always searching for something new—always searching for a great small show—this one happens to wear both hats. Plus, I can get you a discounted hotel room! What’s not to love?

NAMT News

FROM THE NEW WORKS DIRECTOR: Festival Questions Answered

May 9, 2012

As part of the strategic plan, we are conducting a full evaluation of the Festival. Many thanks to those of you who provided detailed input, which is invaluable to the future of the Festival! I’d like to try to clarify two murky areas that came up repeatedly in your comments:
How “blind” is the process?
As blind as it can be. The Festival Committee’s review materials do not include any writer information or production history; however, some of the committee members are very involved in developing new musicals and may already be in-the-know. At the committee meetings, we speak carefully about each show, to avoid revealing writer genders, developmental histories or the like (it is not an easy language to speak!). We discuss our excitement and the possibilities for the future of each submission. The blinders are typically lifted during the last hour of the last committee meeting as we are about to make our final decisions.
Who is on the committee?
The committee changes every year, with at least 1/3 of the committee rotating off to include some new voices in the mix. I work with the co-chairs to compose a committee of 12-13 people that represents the spectrum of the membership. Each member serves for 2-3 years. It is not an easy committee—members read a lot of shows and put in countless hours outside of their actual jobs to choose the Festival every year.

In addition to highlighting these two areas of confusion, the Festival feedback gave us a wealth of insight. You were overwhelmingly supportive but also had great ideas to make our members’ experience at the Festival even better, which a special task force and I are working to develop and implement. I value your input; if you ever have questions about the Festival or an idea (small to crazy, love them both), never hesitate to contact me. As most of you know, I love talking about the Festival!

NAMT News

New Works in Progress: ASCAP

May 3, 2012

An interview with Michael A. Kerker, Director of Musical Theatre at ASCAP, about their Musical Theatre Workshop, which recently included the musicals Costs of Living by Timothy Huang, Dora: Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria by Larry Bortnik, Hardcore West Virginia by Mike Pettry & Claire Karpen and Single Girls Guide by NAMT Fest alumni Tommy Newman & Gordon Greenberg.
The ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop is a development program for new musicals. The workshop is led by its artistic director, Stephen Schwartz (NAMT Fest ’96–Children of Eden) and is coordinated by Kerker. Their goal is to nurture new composers and lyricists and to help them shape and focus their projects in the early stages of development. The annual workshop is held in New York, usually in the early spring, and the Los Angeles workshop (presented in partnership with DreamWorks Animation) is held in February.
How do you select the musicals to be presented in the workshops?
Writers are asked to submit 4 songs from their musical, a copy of the lyrics with plot placement information and a brief synopsis of the libretto. We receive approximately 125 submissions for each workshop. I listen to all submissions and usually send a dozen or so of the more promising ones to Stephen Schwartz. He then listens to these finalists and ultimately we select 4 projects for presentation in the workshop.

What roles do Schwartz and other panelists play in the workshop process?
Each of the 4 participants will make 2 presentations before a panel of theatre professionals (such as Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lippa [NAMT Fest ’06–Jerry Christmas, ’08–A Little Princess], Craig Carnelia [NAMT Fest ’01–Actor, Lawyer, Indian Chief], Bruce Coughlin, Stephen Flaherty, Tom Schumacher, etc.) led by Schwartz. The initial presentation is the first consecutive 25 minutes of the musical. After the presentation, the panelists offer feedback, comments and a critique of the project. We then give the writers a week or so before their second presentation which will be 50 consecutive minutes…from any part of the musical. If they’ve done any rewriting after their first presentation, the writers often choose to present the first 50 minutes…but this is not mandatory. After this second presentation, Schwartz again leads a panel discussion of the musical.
Most young writers tell us that after the insightful panel discussions, they can see the path they need to follow to improve the project. The impartial third eye view of creative talents helps bring any book issues into focus as well as any problems with the score.
The “audience” for the workshop is comprised of the writers who submitted to the program but were not selected as well as other young aspiring songwriters. The comments made by Schwartz and the panelists are both specific to the presentation and are universal. Therefore the audience can make use of the panelists’ feedback for their own projects.
How does ASCAP measure a successful workshop each year?
Success could be measured by the many talents who have gone on to have successful careers in the theatre: Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty, Jonathan Larson, Glenn Slater [NAMT Fest ’08–Beatsville], Andrew Lippa and more recent graduates such as Michael Kooman & Chris Dimond [NAMT Fest ’11–Dani Girl], Brian Lowdermilk, Kait Kerrigan and Ryan Scott Oliver. But perhaps a better means of measurement is the ever-increasing number of submissions we receive each year, including ones from other countries, the ever-expanding number of writers who audit the program and the requests I receive to bring the workshop to other states countries. We have brought the workshops to Miami, Chicago and Australia already.
There is no question that the major reason for the program’s success is the leadership of Stephen Schwartz. There is no one who has done more to nurture, encourage, guide and influence the new generation of theatre composers and lyricists.
How can people get more info about the Workshop?
For information about the submission guidelines to the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop go to www.ASCAP.com or email mkerker@ascap.com.