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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Returning to the Festival

October 17, 2014

With less than a week until the Festival, How to Break bookwriter/lyricist and Festival Alum Aaron Jafferis reminisces about his successes and memories (albeit sporadic)

since the 2007 Festival, and why returning to the Festival proves to be an important step in the development of his latest project.

Along with Rebecca Hart and Yako 440, I’m one of the authors of How to Break, a hip-hop musical about being ill, that will be showcased at this year’s Festival.

I’m pretty sure my and Ian Williams’ show Kingdom was in the NAMT festival 2007. Though I have no memory of the year 2007, I have evidence that it worked out well, since many of the contacts in my “theatre industry” Excel spreadsheet say “NAMT 07.” I also know that it was at the NAMT festival where folks from The Old Globe first got interested in Kingdom, which is what led to our first production, first agent, first improper liaison with a cast member, etc.
(Note: that last “first” is in dispute, thanks to differing definitions of words like “improper” and
“member.” And “first.”)
I can only assume the main difference in terms of process between then and now is that in 2007, Ian and I were sitting on our asses picking our toes (each our own asses and toes, thank you very much – please see reference in paragraph one to “cast.”) waiting for the next email from NAMT telling us what to do; whereas in 2014 my collaborators and I are so incredibly successful, juggling so many projects, that we have been delinquent in serious tasks like blog-writing and less serious tasks like finding a director and cast.
That said, we feel confident that when we (the How to Break team) get it together, NAMT will be able to tell us what to do with it. Unlike in my imaginary memory of 2007, NAMT now has fancy GoogleDrive spreadsheets for casting, fancy logos for all the shows, audio samples on the website, electronic clones of Branden Huldeen, etc.
Meanwhile, my collaborators and I are making up for the technological improvements made by NAMT since 2007 by regressing not only to a pre-digital age but to a pre-paper age.
(When was paper invented? Were the 10 Commandments written in stone because there was no paper, or because stone is an easier material with which to hit people upside the head?)
Kingdom presented difficulties in the NAMT 2007 festival process because Ian scored everything by hand, and the raps were very loosely scored. How to Break is attempting to make up for what it lacks in musical complexity (basically, one person sings all the songs and the other three rap) with an innovative aural score. Meaning we haven’t written any of the music down. (Shh, don’t tell Branden.)
All obnoxious ribbing aside, the support and detail-oriented guidance coming from NAMT throughout this process have been just what we need to get us all on the same page (a metaphorical page given that the score doesn’t exist, but a page nonetheless), and stands in stark contrast to my recent attempt to organize a tour of How to Break with my own theatre company, which crumbled due to the fact that I am not NAMT.

NAMT News

Behind The Scenes Of 'Circus In Winter' At Goodspeed

October 16, 2014

“The Circus in Winter” competed in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in 2012, where it won 11 awards. That led to a slot in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s prestigious Festival of New Musicals, the launching pad for such shows as “The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Songs for a New World.”

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Creating a 45-minute Cut of our Show

October 9, 2014

The 2014 NAMT Festival is just TWO WEEKS AWAY, and today we have Cubamor bookwriter and lyricist James Sasser giving us a special video blog capturing, in “real” time, his process of creating a 45-minute version of his musical to showcase at New World Stages.

NAMT News

NAMT Press: Annaleigh Ashford, Heidi Blickenstaff, Josh Grisetti and Mary Testa Populate NAMT Musicals

October 3, 2014

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre has announced initial casting for the 26th Annual Festival of New Musicals, which will take place Oct. 23-24 at New World Stages.

The annual musical theatre event provides a platform for emerging and established theatre writers to showcase a 45-minute presentation of their works with casts featuring Broadway and Off-Broadway actors. Many of the new works find life at regional companies, as well as Off-Broadway and on Broadway.

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Preparing Orchestrations and Arrangements

October 1, 2014

As we get closer to the Festival, Mary Marie composer Carl Johnson reflects on the daunting task of preparing musical arrangements for his Festival presentation, as

well as the challenges and great rewards of live performance.

I’ve been working on orchestrating the music for our show Mary Marie for the Festival, and have been pondering the differences between writing for live theater and writing for film and television. It seems almost as if it’s the difference between planning for a worst-case or a best-case scenario!

In studio recording you plan for a best-case scenario in terms of the performance you get out of the musicians. The recording studio is temperature-controlled, the lighting is optimized for reading, there are a variety of microphones set up around the instruments so that every nuance of their playing can be captured without the musician having to overplay or hold back. Even the catering and bathroom-break schedule is designed to put the players in the best frame of mind to play perfectly.

In a live situation, you never know what the players are going to encounter! Even the best-
planned productions have to account for Murphy’s Law.

In a studio recording the music is carefully planned, and usually recorded with the musicians listening to a pre-recorded click track. Every tempo is set ahead of time, and the musicians wear headphones so that they can play exactly together, whatever the conductor is doing. In live performance, the tempo of the music can change drastically from performance to performance depending on how the performer or conductor feels. It is much more spur-of-the-moment, which gives the music a much more emotional, organic feel. This requires that the musicians be much more aware of what everyone else is doing and that they pay attention to the conductor or music director.

In terms of difficulty, you can write anything for a recording musician and consider that they only have to play it perfectly once, when the red “recording” light is on. For live performance, there are additional concerns, like: “Can they play that consistently? Will it be too physically taxing? Will it come across if the sound system is down?”

There’s also the unknown. In a studio situation, you’ve pretty much taken out all possibility for surprises, but in a live situation, you never know if a singer is going to skip a verse, or the audience is going to laugh, or the trumpet player is going to start playing too early. I’ve found that in my arrangements I’ve been trying to account for as many “what ifs” as I can imagine, but I’m sure there are many more that will be complete surprises.

So, while the process of studio recording is designed to be predictable and perfect, the experience of live performance is inherently unpredictable. Studio recordings are meticulously preplanned but live performances live and breathe in the moment. While studio recordings can be scrubbed and polished to reveal the orchestration, live performance requires more pragmatism. Where studio performance eliminates variables, live performance allows for spontaneity and surprises and emotion.

Now that I think about it, I’m not sure which is the best-case scenario after all!

NAMT News

New Work in Progress: IRVING BERLIN'S HOLIDAY INN

September 24, 2014

This month, we check in with Donna Lynn Hilton, Line Producer at Goodspeed Musicals, as they start rehearsals for the world premiere of Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, based on the classic movie!

Happy holidays! Check into the tuneful world-premiere musical about a Connecticut farmhouse transformed into a jubilant nightspot—but only on holidays. From Valentine’s Day to the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving to Christmas, expect a cornucopia of hit songs by Irving Berlin in a dance-dizzy romance based on the classic film that first starred Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. Raise a glass of cheer to “Happy Holiday,” “Easter Parade,” “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” and more of the world’s greatest show tunes.Who had the initial idea to turn Holiday Inn into a stage show and what was that impulse?
Universal Stage Productions launched the initial process of turning the beloved film “Holiday Inn” into the stage musical Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn. Universal has a thriving development arm led by Chris Herzberger. Chris came out of the regional theatre in Chicago and values our place in the development of new work. Under Chris’s leadership, Universal is working with partners across the country on developing their catalogue and Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn will be one of the first to make it to full production.
What is Goodspeed’s relationship with Universal pictures through this process?
Universal and Chris Herzberger have been truly wonderful partners and colleagues throughout this process. Universal brought writers Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge on board to begin developing the adaptation of “Holiday Inn” in 2012. Goodspeed has developed several projects with Gordon as either bookwriter or director (or both!) and he suggested to Chris that Goodspeed was a natural fit as the first home of Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn. From our very first conversation at the NAMT conference in the fall of 2012, it was clear that Chris and I shared a love of this film and a vision for bringing it to life on the stage. Universal led the charge in the early stages of development working closely with the Irving Berlin Music Company, but Goodspeed’s early commitment to producing the show on the Opera House stage in the fall of 2014 was a critical piece of the plan from Universal’s perspective. Once the major players committed to the project, work moved very quickly. Chris and I have worked for about a year with Gordon and Chad to bring the script to the point where we are excited to begin rehearsal this week—in fact, I am writing this in the afterglow of the read-through on our first day of rehearsal. Goodspeed suggested Sam Davis as vocal and dance arranger for the project and that has proven to be a brilliant choice—if we say so ourselves! And we worked together with Universal to identify the remainder of the creative team. Honestly, Goodspeed and Universal have been on the same page about this project at every turn.
Why does Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn fit well with Goodspeed and the Opera House audience?

Anyone who has attended a performance at the Goodspeed Opera House understands that we are a perfect fit for Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn. Our creative staff and our audiences have a love and appreciation for musical comedy loaded with dance. It’s what we cut our teeth on, so committing to this project was truly a “no-brainer” for us. And our audiences responded immediately to tell us we’d made a choice of which they approved (translation: get your tickets soon!)
You have a produced a couple readings of the piece prior to presenting it. What has changed as the show has evolved from the screenplay to the stage musical?
Although many elements of the film remain, we’ve taken liberties to enhance the experience of seeing the show live onstage. The goal was to amplify everything we loved about the movie. To do that we’ve interpolated songs and turned a few songs from the movie into big production numbers. We’ve made narrative adjustments, looking at characters and their humanity through a contemporary lens, while keeping it all firmly rooted in the period in which the film was created. I think the result is something quite special.
Why should everyone come see Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn this fall?
As Gordon Greenberg said in his “Director’s vision” for our playbill, “Holiday Inn is a sparkly new musical with all the great Irving Berlin songs from the film—and many more Berlin songs that audiences will recognize and love. It has big dance numbers, big ideas and most of all, a big heart. It’s all about the beauty of being true to yourself; living simply and honestly and finding rewards in doing what you love on your own terms.” Isn’t that reason enough for a visit to East Haddam?
And the best time to see Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn will be at the NAMT New Works Summit on November 13!
For more information about the show, please visit www.goodspeed.org

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: MY HEART IS THE DRUM

September 24, 2014

This month, we check in on 2013 Festival show My Heart is The Drum and its authors Stacey Luftig, Phillip Palmer and Jennie Redling on their recent reading at NAMT Member The Village Theatre in Issaquah, WA and their upcoming production at NAMT Member Kent State University.

My Heart Is the Drum is a big musical set in West Africa with a driving, African-influenced score. It is about Efua Kuti, a 16-year-old girl who aches to leave behind her stifling, poverty-struck village to become a teacher, and Edward Adu, a traditional farmhand who is in love with her. Inspired by the spirit of her grandmother, Efua runs away to the city of Accra to attend the university, but on arrival gets abducted into prostitution. Edward sets out to find her. Efua has always been able to draw on her cunning to solve her problems, but will she escape these most desperate circumstances? And if Edward finds her, will he still love her now that she has been “disgraced?” At its core, the musical is about finding the inner strength to achieve your goals and create social change.
What was feedback like for your show after you presented in our Festival?
Mainly, people told us they wanted to know what will happen to Efua, our heroine, in Act II. We took that as a good sign.
You had the opportunity to bring the show to Goodspeed’s Johnny Mercer Writers Colony this winter. What did you work on during that time in snowy Connecticut?
First, we went through the script and pinpointed the scenes, lyrics and music that we had always labelled “good enough for now” and that we’d fix “later.” Our time at Goodspeed was our “later.”
We also focused on two pivotal moments for Efua, one in Act I, one in Act II. We all feel very passionately about her, and it took several passes—including one serious crash and burn—before we found the monologue in Act I, and the completely unexpected song in Act II, that we all felt to be “effortlessly” right.
This month at Village Theatre, you had your first ever reading of the full show. What was it like to finally hear the whole show aloud in front of a public audience?
Thrilling and gratifying. After so many years since its start at the BMI workshop, we could see that we had a full, working show and one that moved people. The audience also responded strongly to the script’s humor. For the songs, they not only clapped, but cheered for most of them and scene moments also drew applause.

When a member of the audience approached us afterwards to point out how moved she was by one of those key moments for Efua we’d labored over—the spot where a song had crashed and burned at Goodspeed, and which we’d gone on to reconceive completely—well, that was a proud moment.
What did you learn from that reading and what changes are you looking to make now?
As the reading at Village Theatre was only a week ago (and we’re still basking in the afterglow), we’re just now figuring out what changes need to be made. We’re also looking forward to receiving and reading the comment sheets from their audience members for additional feedback. But we do know we’d like to trim and sharpen Act II, to create even more tension and a greater acceleration toward the end of the show.
Next season, you are heading to Kent State University, near Cleveland, for a full production! What are you excited about working on when you finally get the show on its feet?
Everything! But “on its feet” are key words. Dance is completely integrated with music in West African cultures and we can’t wait to adjust the show, as needed, as we finally discover how dance helps bring the show to life.
Also, it is an extremely visual show, with images that are unfamiliar to most of our audience. Daily village life and work, urban street hawkers, the clash of African traditions and poverty with modernity and rich businessmen—we think that these visuals will add many layers to the story.
Why should people plan to come to Kent State to catch My Heart Is the Drum?
We believe that My Heart Is the Drum is something rare today: an original story that is transporting and dramatic, told with warmth, humor and hope. It has a driving, African-influenced score that is deeply theatrical. And while the themes are universal, many of the timely details are particular to the hardships of those in West Africa, particularly of girls who struggle for an education, and who make great sacrifices as they strive for a better life.
For details about the Kent State production, please visit www.kent.edu/theatre_new/my-heart-drum.
For more about the show, please visit www.myheartisthedrum.com or like My Heart Is The Drum on Facebook.

NAMT News

FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Cutting Down Your Show

August 21, 2014

We kick off this year’s Festival season with our first Festival Countdown Blog! In this entry, Duane Poole, bookwriter of Beautiful Poison, gives us insight on how to prepare the 45-minute cut of the show for the Festival.

So we get the news that we made the cut. (By “we” I mean composer Brendan Milburn, lyricist Valerie Vigoda, and bookwriter me.) Our “Beautiful Poison” is in this year’s NAMT Festival! The thrill of the announcement is still fresh when we realize we have yet another cut to make — bringing our two-hour musical down to a strict forty-five minutes for the presentation.
Okay, this shouldn’t be a problem. As both a writer and producer, I’ve done this sort of thing countless times over the years. But there seems to be extra pressure on this particular cut. Perhaps it’s knowing who might be in our audiences this October. What can we show these theatre insiders in that abbreviated time that will truly represent the variety of music, the twists of plot, and the richness of character we three have worked so hard to create?

NAMT News

A Playwright’s Well-Traveled Valentine to Broadway

July 17, 2014

In May 2008, a benefit concert version, featuring Donna Murphy, Christian Borle, and a host of guest stars, sold out Town Hall. Interest in the piece was rekindled. Mr. Zippel submitted it to the National Alliance for Musical Theater for a showing in its industry-only festival of new musicals.
“The festival committee reviews blind,” explained Branden Huldeen, the alliance’s director for new works. “Someone very smart said of this show: ‘This script is so funny. I love the score, it’s like an old-fashioned Cy Coleman musical written for kids.’ When we told him at the meeting, he was floored.”
Lila Coogan and Donna Murphy performing in a benefit concert version of “Pamela’s First Musical” in 2008. CreditJay Brady
“Pamela’s First Musical” got its shot in the October 2008 festival. The dimensions of the show became clearer: Fourteen performers were onstage, not as many as a full production would require. And the sets and costumes needed for the musical within a musical Pamela attends with her aunt seemed daunting.
“It was a hard sell in 2008,” Mr. Huldeen said. “People weren’t buying big musicals.”

NAMT News

NAMT Press: Festival of New Musicals Announces Its Roster

July 1, 2014

The Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, the composer Adam Gwon and the composing duo Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond are among the names represented in this year’s Festival of New Musicals, produced by the National Alliance for Musical Theater, a national nonprofit organization.
The 26th annual festival will be held Oct. 23-24 at New World Stages, and will feature readings of eight musicals, whittled down from over 230 submissions. The festival can offer significant exposure; among those who typically attend are producers and regional-theater programmers, and last year the performers included the Tony winner Sutton Foster and the “Rocky” star Andy Karl.

NAMT News

New Work in Progress: PLAY IT BY HEART

June 9, 2014

An interview with Kevin Moore, Producing Artistic Director of The Human Race Theatre Company, about their upcoming production of Play It By Heart with a book by Brian Yorkey (Making Tracks, NAMT Fest ’01), music by David Spangler and Jerry Taylor, and lyrics by Spangler, Taylor and R.T. Robinson.

As a teenager, she became the breakout star of the Jasper Family Singers. Now, Jeannine Jasper is the “Queen of County Music,” but she has hopes of getting off the road and having a life. After a concert, a long lost love appears and they discover the spark is still there. But their “history” could be her undoing. Her record label has been purchased by a Dubai businessman who has his own plans for her career, and her rebel, younger sister is always in the news for all the wrong reasons. Family secrets are revealed to the sweet sounds of old and new country in this quintessential story of a family.

Play It By Heart was originally produced out at The Village Theatre. How did it find its way to Dayton, Ohio?
It actually came to us from one of the writers, David Spangler. After their production at the Village Theatre in 2005, the writers all went off to work on other projects. Brian Yorkey had this little show brewing called Next to Normal. In 2006, we workshopped the musical Nefertiti by David Spangler and Rick Gore. We stayed great friends and in 2009 he told me about Play It By Heart, and that the writers all wanted to get back to it. I read it, listened and was hooked. I offered them a residency – brought them in and gave them a space to live, work and gave them actors to play with. That was Fall, 2009. In the summer of 2010, we did a full workshop. Our audience loved it. Over and over I heard, “I’m usually not a country music fan, but I really liked this music and this show.”

You presented a reading of the show last year in your Festival and clearly must have gone over very well. What work have the writers put in on the show since then?
Based upon our workshop experience that incorporated new material and plot ideas, the writers and I identified certain story lines that needed to be clarified, songs that needed to be replaced, and development of some of the new ideas that didn’t have enough time to fully ferment during our workshop. Brian, David and Jerry have been working on both the book and the score and are working to deliver our starting materials. We have engaged a music director/arranger who will refresh the old score and make it more “actor friendly,” as well as prepare the new material and orchestrations.

Why is the show a good fit for your season and your audience?
I, and my audience, love to see shows move from workshop to full production. Our audience is already invested in the work. What I have found in Play It By Heart is a musical that speaks volumes about family and about forgiveness – surrounded by a changing world. Everyone can relate to this family, this situation. The universality of it intrigues me and makes me want to tell this story. This is a story that my audience wants to experience.

Why are you excited about presenting this new musical this season?I believe the global popularity of country music makes it essential that America – originator of the musical form – deliver a country musical to the masses. I am honored to follow in the big footsteps of the Village Theatre to help make Play It by Heart the “poster child.” Personally, I never understood why my father watched The Grand Ole Opry and The Porter Wagoner Show every week. I just couldn’t, and it was a likely reason for my escaping to musical theatre. It is somewhat ironic that my current passion is for a musical about the country music industry. My own personal apology to my Dad.

Why should people catch Play It By Heart this summer?
Whether you are a small regional theatre (we are 212 seats, 3/4 thrust) or a larger proscenium house, this is a show that has the potential to bring in new audiences while delighting your traditional subscribers. It’s a great story and “radio-worthy” songs. It has been a long time since musical theatre songs have crossed over. This could be the next. Besides, “summer in Ohio” is much more than the song would leave you to believe. Come find your country roots.
For more information about the show, please visit www.humanracetheatre.org.

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: ELMER GANTRY

June 9, 2014

This month, we check in on Elmer Gantry from our 1993 Festival of New Musicals as it prepares for its upcoming revised production at Virginia’s Signature Theatre. Composer Mel Marvin has been hard at work preparing the show for this next step.

Elmer Gantry is a musical with a country-pop-gospel score, set in the Depression-era Midwest. The title character is a down-on-his-luck former minister whose life as a traveling salesman takes an unexpected turn when he walks into the tent of Sister Sharon Falconer, a beautiful and charismatic woman evangelist. Joining her troupe, he’s soon preaching again and using his entrepreneurial instincts to make the troupe so successful, it’s invited to play Zenith, the biggest city in the Midwest. He also becomes Sharon’s lover. Their success in Zenith leads to opportunity, intrigue, tragedy and reaffirmation of Americans’ ability to deal with their circumstances and get on with their lives. The musical is adapted from the novel by Nobel Prize-winner Sinclair Lewis.
The original version of the show appeared in our 1993 Festival, having been originally commissioned by Ford’s Theatre and presented there in 1988. What was your Festival experience like back in 1993 and what kind of response did you get from your presentation of your show?
There was a second production of the show in 1991, before we did it at NAMT, at La Jolla Theatre, directed by Des McAnuff. In 1993, we had a wonderful time at NAMT, and we felt the presentation was very successful. Several theaters showed interest. Frankie Hewitt, the producer of the show at Ford’s Theater in 1988, decided to revive the show at Ford’s in 1995 in a production directed by Michael Maggio. After that production, there was a New York City workshop in 1997, directed by James Lapine, and an outstanding production in 1998 at the Marriott Lincolnshire Theater in Chicago, directed by Eric Schaeffer.

It is rare for a show to be rediscovered so many years after it was first presented. Where did the idea for a new production come from?
Eric Schaeffer, who has been a friend and promoter of Elmer Gantry since he directed it in 1998, always wanted to do another production of the show, and he called us to say he would like to make it part of the 25th Anniversary Season at the Signature Theatre in Arlington.

How much rewriting/reworking will there be of the script?
Part of the renewed interest in Elmer Gantryis that there IS a rewrite. There are a substantial number of changes in Act 2, both in the book and in the songs. We believe this is the best version we’ve ever done, and we can’t wait to see it onstage. Several numbers have been reworked, and there are two entirely new songs. It has now been 15 years since the last production, and the new version has been waiting in the wings. Work is still going on and will be, from now through the rehearsal period. What could be better?

What are your hopes for this new production?
We feel incredibly lucky to get to revisit this musical, which has been one of the most important works in all of our lives. We’ve all been around the block too many times to think beyond doing the best work we can to make this a great theatrical experience for the audience. That’s our best hope.

Why should people come down to Virginia to catch this exciting new production of Elmer Gantry?
What makes Elmer Gantry so theatrical and exciting as a project is not only the richness and relevance of its source material but, over the course of four regional productions, a New York workshop and many years in the lives of its creators, the way the show has evolved. The Signature production is the culmination of a long and unusual journey. We hope that the result will provide audiences with the depth and satisfaction of a passionately felt, entertaining American musical.

For more information about Elmer Gantry, please visit www.signature-theatre.org.

NAMT News

NAMT Press: Public Theater, Goodspeed Musicals and More Score 2014 NAMT Grants

May 14, 2014

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announced nine awards granted from their National Fund for New Musicals, with recipients including the Public Theater, Goodspeed Musicals and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The fund will provide grants totaling $35,500 to nine organizations across the country.

The National Fund for New Musicals is a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals.

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: ANALOG AND VINYL

May 14, 2014

Festival 2013 show Analog and Vinyl is jumping up to Vermont’s Weston Playhouse this summer for its world premiere. This month we check in with the show’s writer Paul Gordon about preparing for the musical’s first production.
Harrison is obsessed with LPs from the sixties and the superior quality of analog. Rodeo Girl, a quirky Silver Lake hipster, is obsessed with Harrison but he barely notices. With his vintage record store about to go under, Harrison and Rodeo Girl are visited by a mysterious customer who makes them a devilish offer they can’t refuse.
What did you learn about Analog and Vinyl while preparing it for the Festival?
Preparing for the Festival wasn’t as much a learning experience as it was an “inspiring” experience. Once you know your show is going to be seen by an industry audience, it does strange things to the creative process. You start looking at the material with more fluid eyes. You start questioning and examining the material (all while trying to create a 45-minute presentation), and suddenly you begin asking yourself the serious dramaturgical questions of theme and character (that you had previously avoided) that are vital to the developmental process. One of the great gifts that came out of my preparation for the Festival was that I felt incentivized to write a new song for the lead character that helped to transform the show.
Your show only had readings leading up to the Festival and now is preparing for a world premiere this summer at Weston Playhouse. What has it been like to jump from reading to production without a workshop in between?
Heaven. I love workshops and readings but there’s nothing like preparing for a production. In our day and age some have been critical that shows have “too many readings” and “too many workshops” in the developmental stage. To me that is pure nonsense. I have never done a reading where I didn’t gain some primary understanding about my show (even if that understanding was, “hey, this is crap…”). With that said, after several readings and the Festival, I’m delighted to actually have, for the first time, a proper rehearsal period to really further develop the work with cast, crew, designers and director.
What have you been working on since the Festival?
Michael Berresse, the director of Analog and Vinyl, has wonderful dramaturgical skills. Since the Festival we have had several extensive note sessions and I have written two new drafts of the show and three new songs. We are still hard at work: tightening, refining, raising stakes and trying out some new ideas. The “essence” of the show remains unchanged, but improvements are on the way.
In the Festival, we mixed things up a bit and made “The Stranger” a woman (played by the wonderful Harriet Harris) when it had always been a man in previous readings. Have you settled on a preference of genders for “The Stranger”?
The idea of The Stranger being a woman was so well received at the Festival that we have decided that, at least for now, we’d like to continue with the character being female. It works either way, but there were some new discoveries we made when Harriet did the part that we’d like to keep intact in the script.
What are you hoping for next after Weston Playhouse?
Ideally we’d like to take the show into New York. We feel the themes of Analog and Vinyl are universal and contemporary. We hope the show’s esoteric humor and its indie rock score will appeal to a wide range of theater-goers. And we hope to offend EVERYONE with our irreverent take on spiritual themes often unexplored in rock musicals.
Why should people head up to beautiful scenic Vermont this June and July to see Analog and Vinyl?
Because this show, above all else, is FUN. If you learn anything from this show or if the show gives you insight or deeper understanding about how the universe works— that is purely accidental. We simply want you to see this show because we think you will have an amazingly good time. And you will laugh. And you might come home with a song or two stuck in your head and then illegally download songs from my website. And that would be fine.
For more information about Analog and Vinyl, please visit www.westonplayhouse.org.

NAMT News

New Work in Progress: CHASING THE SONG

April 15, 2014

An interview with Dana Harrel, Associate Producer, and Grabriel Greene, Director of New Play Development, at La Jolla Playhouse, about their upcoming production of Chasing a Song, by Joe DiPietro and David Bryan, directed by Chris Ashley.

Elegant Edie’s team of ambitious hitmakers are upended by the arrival of the newest aspiring songwriter — Edie’s daughter Ginny. As Ginny strives to earn her place in the male-dominated world of the early 1960s music scene, American rock and roll finds itself under siege from the incoming British invasion.

Chasing The Song is a reunion of the Memphis team (director, writers, producers) and La Jolla Playhouse. Why was La Jolla Playhouse excited to work onChasing the Song?

Chasing the Song continues Memphis’s exploration into the history of American rock and roll, and the way that it shaped – and was shaped by – social movements. Memphis tracked how music was a bridge during the turbulent racial conflicts of the 1950’s and 60’s. Chasing the Song carries the story forward, and focuses on a completely different part of our social history: the attempts of women to break into and succeed in male-dominated fields.

La Jolla Playhouse has been working on the show for a while now. What has changed, shifted and grown with the show over the last year?

We started working on Chasing the Song as part of our DNA New Play Series in 2013. The work we were able to do during that workshop process was invaluable in discovering that the central arc of the musical was a mother-daughter story. This happened right as we were about to give our first concert reading. It was a wonderful and nerve-wracking moment. A lot of the work over the last year was making this piece as much about strengthening the relationships between characters as it is about the music industry in the 1960’s.

Why do you think Chasing the Song will sing to your audience and be a good fit for this season?

La Jolla Playhouse audiences love being on the ground floor for a brand new piece and being part of the process. Many have also been following the show since last year’s DNA workshop, so they already feel an attachment to the project. At the core, it’s a great rock and roll musical with a strong story and terrific music – people will enjoy it, just like they loved Memphis.

What are you hoping to discover as the show gets up on its feet for the first time?
We still have a lot of work to do on the show, and we really won’t know exactly what that work is until we get on our feet. That’s the great thing about the Page To Stage program here at the Playhouse: we have the time to make the discoveries that make the show better. Our Page To Stage workshop productions never officially open to the press, and are designed to give creative teams the freedom to continue working on a show throughout the entire performance run. Our audiences help us a great deal in that process. We learn things based on their reactions during the show, and we also hold nightly talkbacks where they get to share their feedback.

What are the plans for the show after La Jolla?

There are currently no plans after La Jolla. Of course we hope more audiences get to see this production, but right now we are focused on putting up the best show we possibly can for La Jolla Playhouse audiences.

Why should people swing by La Jolla to catchChasing the Song?

The reason people should catch it – beyond the simple fact that it’s a tremendously fun show – is because they get to be part of the ongoing development of an exciting new musical as it comes to life on stage for the first time.

For more information about the show, please visitwww.lajollaplayhouse.org

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: BLEEDING LOVE

April 15, 2014

This month, we check in on Bleeding Love from our 2012 Festival of New Musicals as it prepares for productions in Connecticut and Denmark. The show’s writers, Harris Doran, Jason Schafer and Arthur Lafrentz Bacon have been hard at work during the past year to prepare the show for its next steps.

Bleeding Love is a post-apocalyptic musical comedy about a sixteen year old cellist who has never left her building, who risks going out into the dangerous world in order to get her one chance at love.
When you presented Bleeding Love at the Festival, it was the premiere of the musical for any audience. What did you learn about the show from finally seeing it in front of an audience?
Yes, NAMT was our very first reading! We learned a great deal about how specific the tone was, because it rides the line between bleakness and comedy, and honest emotion and farce, so we had to make sure we were making that balance clear to the audience.
You were up at Goodspeed Musicals last winter for the Mercer Writers’ Retreat. What was the focus of that devoted time away?
That was an incredible experience. More productive than we ever could have imagined. The three of us, who do not all live in the same city, got to be together for a week straight and just write. We ended up writing an entirely new opening number, completing a very complicated multi-scene song and brainstorming what the end of the musical would be. An unbelievable amount of productivity in such a short period of time.
The show will have a premiere production this season at The Spirit of Broadway Theater in Connecticut. What work are you doing on the show to prepare for its first production?
We are tightening the show to make sure it is production-ready as well as getting our first orchestrations together. We are very excited.
What are you hoping to discover and sort out when the show finally gets on its feet in a production?
We are excited to finally get the chance to see what the show is as a whole without the rhythm being impeded
by stage directions or mimed props. The show takes place in different areas of an apartment building, so a lot of the storytelling is dependent on the shift from location to location, the life that exists within those locations, and visual props and phenomena (snow, growing flowers, etc.) much more so than most other musicals. So we are excited to see the piece fully realized.
The show will also head to Denmark next season for a premiere there. Are there any anticipated changes for its European premiere?
Well, the biggest change is that it will be in Danish! We are going to see what we learn from the Spirit of Broadway production and are lucky to be able to make those changes and see them implemented in the Denmark production.
What are the long range hopes for the show after Connecticut and Denmark?
We hope to bring it to a commercial audience in NY. The show is in the vein of other comically dark pieces likeLittle Shop, Urinetown or Sweeney Todd, so we hope for it to find its NY audience.
Why should people swing by Connecticut (or Denmark) to check out Bleeding Love?
Because Bleeding Love is a unique, well-made musical. It has an original voice, fun characters and exceedingly melodic music. The show itself uses magical theatrical conventions that can only be seen in full production. The readings we have done have gotten people excited, laughing, and moved and we believe you will be, too.

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: THE TROUBLE WITH DOUG

March 11, 2014

An interview with the writers of The Trouble with Doug, Daniel Maté and Will Aronson, about the developments on their 2010 Festival show as it prepares for a production at NAMT member theatre Arts Garage down in Florida this spring.
A contemporary re-imagining of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” The Trouble With Doug is a hilarious and moving new musical about a healthy young man who transforms inexplicably into a giant talking slug. Thrust together awkwardly under the same roof, Doug, his family, and his fiancée all struggle to understand and respond to this strangest of crises.
Last time we checked in with you, Doug was heading to Palo Alto, CA for TheatreWorks’ festival. How was that process for you and the show?
We had a great time in Palo Alto. TheatreWorks provides a unique workshopping opportunity – a chance to perform the show in front of an audience, rewrite, re-tech, perform again, and then repeat that process three times. You can really take the show into the laboratory and experiment. (There’s really no better way to see what works and what doesn’t than to watch the show in front of actual people a few times!)
What changes did you make to the show while in California?
After watching the show, we felt that our titular character was under-developed — so we added several new musical moments for Doug throughout the first act to clarify his arc and round him out a bit more. We also tried out a number of new scenes for Doug’s family, and also ended up with a slightly gentler ending.

You are currently rewriting the show for a production down at Arts Garage in Florida. What are your goals with this rewrite?
We’ve both been busy with several different projects, so this is a great opportunity to get back into Doug world and implement the changes we’ve long discussed. Aside from continuing to flesh out the rewrites we began in Palo Alto, we’re excited to upgrade the score so that each song moment is as dynamic and memorable as possible! In addition, true to that old musical adage that openings often come last, we’re writing an entirely new opening— replacing a song we’ve had for a long time with what we hope will be a new and more energetic start to the show.
What are your desired next steps for the show after Florida?
It might sound strange to say when a show is about a giant talking slug and his crazy family, but we’ve felt, especially since TheatreWorks, that we have the basis here for a really accessible, crowd-pleasing show, one that could connect with a lot of different audiences and fans of new musical theatre. We’d love to get more theaters interested in the piece, and hopefully license it. A New York production would also be fabulous of course!

Why should people head down to Florida to check out The Trouble with Doug this spring?
We’ve got a great local director (Margaret Ledford), a terrific cast, and a band that features some fun low woodwinds and a cello. Come check it out! It’ll be slugular, we promise.
For more information about the show, please visit www.artsgarage.org

NAMT News

New Work in Progress: JUDGE JACKIE JUSTICE

March 11, 2014

NAMT member theatre Pittsburgh CLO recently opened the world premiere of Judge Jackie Justice, a new musical by Michael Kooman and Chris Dimond (both, NAMT Fest ’11-Dani Girl). The show runs through April 27 at their cabaret space. We took a moment to chat with Pittsburgh CLO’s Executive Producer Van Kaplan, who also directed the show and came up with its concept, about bringing some Justice to Pittsburgh.
You’ve been summoned for a brand new musical comedy: it’s CourtTV meets Springer! The musical courtroom of Judge Jackie Justice is now in session at the CLO Cabaret. Behold “real” cases involving zombies, spaceships, furries and more! TV’s hottest Judge relishes in ruling on the personal affairs of people just like you, but what happens when the tables are turned? You won’t “object” to this brand new musical comedy!
Judge Jackie Justice (JJJ) is a commission from Pittsburgh CLO. What was the motivation behind commissioning a show for your cabaret space?
Creating new works is part of the mission of the CLO and we are always looking for fresh material, especially for the Cabaret. Finding new and exciting small-scale musicals for our year-round programming has been a challenge for us.
You had the original idea for JJJ. What was the inspiration for a musical about TV court shows?
After I saw Jerry Springer the Opera (which I thought was a hoot) in London I thought of creating a show along the same vein but also with some audience participation. The super-sized personalities and live and reactive audiences of Court TV shows seemed like good material to mine for musical comedy.
Why did you go with the team of Kooman and Dimond to create the show and what has that process been like?
I saw a reading of Dani Girlat the NAMT Festival and then had an opportunity to listen to Howard Barnes and was sold. They are imaginative writers and because I wanted humor that skewed a little younger for my show, they seemed right for the job. The process of creating the show was like others I have been a part of, highs and lows, agreements and disagreements, and striving to reach the best place possible. A commissioned work poses unique challenges because it is an inherently collaborative writing process. Because Judge Jackie was my idea, I knew what I wanted and was specific with the writers.
Why do think it is important for your theatre to create new musicals for your audience?
We’ve been involved in a number of new shows both at the Cabaret and for our main stage. As a producing regional theatre, it is important for us to contribute where we can to the expanding canon of musicals that in the years ahead will be produced here and around the world. Our subscribers are savvy theater goers who are devoted to classic musical theater and they get excited by new musicals too.
I had the pleasure of being there for the second performance and the audience was having a blast. How has the feedback been from the audience so far?
Our audiences appear to be having a good time and we are selling tickets. In addition to enjoying the zany humor I’ve had people tell me that the show has “heart” and very catchy songs.
What is your hope for the future of the show?
Most importantly we want our audience to enjoy this musical, which, incidentally, has lots of local references built in which can be adapted to suit any city’s humorous idiosyncrasies and could be a lot of fun performed regionally.
What are your long term hopes for new musicals at the Cabaret?
We hope that any show we create at the CLO Cabaret will appeal to our audiences and find a life outside of Pittsburgh. This show is right for almost any theatre. We’ll see where “the Judge” takes us!
Why should people swing out to Pittsburgh for some Justice?
The show skews to a slightly younger audience than our shows normally do but it’s a pretty standard book musical format that will satisfy purists. It could work well on main stages or at smaller venues trying to attract new audiences. By the way, with a younger audience in mind we built into the start of the show some fun social media opportunities (see #judgejackie).
For more information about the show, please visit www.pittsburghclo.org

NAMT News

New Work in Progress: SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE at University of Miami

February 5, 2014

An interview with The University of Miami’s Henry Fonte about their upcoming developmental production (see listing on right) of Slaughterhouse-Five, with music by Jed Feuer and book and lyrics by Adele Ahroneim, based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel.

How did Slaughterhouse-Five find its way to the University of Miami?
Larry Wilker, the former producer at the Arsht Center here in Miami, an old friend, handed it to me and said, “I like this show and I like the people who wrote it. I can’t produce it. Take a look.” I almost fell over when I saw the title. One of my favorite books! But how the hell do you turn it into a musical? And then I read it and listened; and, by George! Jed and Adele really did it! And they kept the essence of the ordinal Vonnegut! I was floored.
Why is this show a great fit for your students and audience?
Since the show is all about being “unstuck in time,” some characters appear at different stages in their life, and since the play is so presentational and so Brechtian in a way, the ages of the actors are irrelevant. This allows us to use a young cast beautifully, without anyone having to play old. And since we are doing this in our Studio Theatre, the audience is young and hip and expects to see new and even avant-garde work. So it is a perfect fit for us all the way around.
How does the process of this show fit in to the University’s mission for training young artists?

One of our biggest areas of focus in the training is to produce new works, so that the students get used to working with the writers in the room, and so they learn the etiquette associated with that kind of work: not only the writers being in the room and participating, but the daily changes and the joint development of the piece among all the artists. There is nothing more thrilling for a young performer, or more educational, than to have a song or monologue written or tailored “for them.”
What kind of work will the writers be doing while working on the show and what will be the level of presentation?
The writers will both be here for two visits for a total of about ten days. Our guest director, Douglas Love, Jed and Adele are already deep into pre-production and identifying the parts of the play that they want to concentrate on. The writers will come in with some rewrites, and then depending on how those rewrites fare in rehearsal, will continue to work on them or move on to others. They will be heavily involved and we expect a good number of substantial changes while the show is in rehearsal. The level of presentation is skeletal. And this is on purpose. This developmental workshop is about the script, the music and the lyrics. It is not about production. Every level of production will be minimal.
Why should people swing by Miami to check out Slaughterhouse Five this spring?
For the opportunity to see the beginning stages of a what we hope is a great new American musical based on one the greatest American novels. Also, to see some great artists working in conjunction with some very talented students to create new work. Isn’t that what NAMT is all about?
For more information about Slaughterhouse-Five, please visit www.miami.edu/THA

Festival Shows in the News

NAMT News

Festival Show Update: MEET JOHN DOE

February 5, 2014

An update from Andrew Gerle and Eddie Sugarman about their 2005 NAMT Festival show Meet John Doe, based on the Capra film, about the getting the show licensed, recorded and ready to go out into the world.

There are big new developments for Meet John Doe, and we’re so excited to share them with all the NAMT members and our fellow writers. Since the Festival, we’ve seen several very different productions of the show, and now that it’s been licensed by Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals, we can’t wait to see what other theaters, large and small, do with it. We also just released the cast album on Broadway Records with Heidi Blickenstaff, Jim Moye and Robert Cuccioli (one of Talkin’ Broadway’s top 10 cast albums of 2013!), which was a huge thrill and an even huger surprise—more on that later.
We’re so grateful to NAMT and all the organizations that have helped us along the way, and are very excited that the album will allow many more people to meet John Doe. NAMT was the beginning of a perfect development process for us. At a retreat at TheatreWorks, we were able to write several new songs, and then incorporate them at a workshop at Carousel Dinner Theater. A student production at the Hartt School of Music allowed us to see the show and fine-tune the book, and an extensive rehearsal process at Goodspeed Musicals gave us the opportunity to add another couple of songs and address big-picture issues like pacing and flow.
The process culminated with our world premiere in DC at the Ford’s Theater. We swapped out another couple songs for that production, and were overwhelmed by how well the show played for large houses (9 Helen Hayes nominations and 2 wins!). What was maybe most exciting was how much it entertained and moved the Ford’s many high school audiences, who had
very little experience with live theater. We knew if we could “get” that tough crowd, we really had something special, and all our obsessive adjustments over the past 18 months had been worth it.
One big change happened after Ford’s, as we were preparing for our Chicago premiere at Porchlight Theatre. A song we loved on its own, a seemingly obligatory eleven o’clock number for Ann, never played the way we wanted it to in performance. We realized that what makes the movie so compelling and ground-breaking is the way it subtly switches protagonists about halfway through, thrusting John into the spotlight and demanding that he pick up the ball. For Chicago, we cut Ann’s song and wrote a big number for John, leaving Ann instead with a heartfelt monologue at the end which worked in ways her song never did. We’re very happy to have both John’s new song and Ann’s monologue represented on our new cast album.
After the Porchlight production, Rodgers & Hammerstein licensed the show (thrilling on its own), and asked us to make an up-to-date demo of the score. Amazingly, what started as a demo in Andrew’s home recording studio turned out so well (our dream cast and top Broadway musicians had something to do with it) that Broadway Records heard it and decided to release it commercially! It’s out in the world now, and we’re especially proud of how the album is not only a document of these wonderful performances, but that it tells the story on its own. We actually added that final monologue for Ann at the last minute (tracks were already off being mastered!), to make sure the story was clear and landed the way it does in the theater.
What’s been especially gratifying for us is seeing the show play in very different sized houses and with different kinds of casts. From our student production at the Hartt School, to the developmental production at Goodspeed, to the lavish Ford’s premiere, to the more modest black-box production in Chicago, the story continues to be meaningful and moving. Most fun for us, our love for the songs of the ’30s and ’40s has come through each time, and the jazzy big band score is as melodic and toe-tapping as the classic songs of that era, whether with Jonathan Tunick’s 10-piece orchestration or the 5-piece version we used in Chicago and on the album. With the political dysfunction that continues to plague this country, we’re very proud of the relevance the show continues to have and how it deals with questions from our own time: politics as entertainment and the role of the media in setting the tone for what kind of country we want to live in.
We hope theaters will listen to the cast album and read the script (much of it the original snappy period banter from the movie)—we think they’ll find a show that is both traditional and contemporary, that entertains and says something important at the end of the evening.

NAMT News

Musical Gift Giving this Holiday Season

December 18, 2013

The holidays are here and ’tis the season of giving. After you are done giving to your favorite not-for-profits (like NAMT) this year, why not spread your love of musical theatre!
Over the last few years, many of our Festival shows have released albums. They are all great gifts and run the gamut from rock (Lizzie) to bluegrass (Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge), something for everyone!

Or maybe you want an album devoted to just one artist? We have a few of those, too, from NAMT Festival alumni writers who have put out non-show albums of their work:

All of these albums and more (including scripts, piano scores and mp3 downloads) can be bought at NAMT’s Amazon store! And when you shop on our store, NAMT receives a portion of the profits from Amazon, so it is like you are giving twice!

Click here to start shopping!

NAMT News

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Returning to the Festival

Festival Shows in the News

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Behind The Scenes Of 'Circus In Winter' At Goodspeed

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Creating a 45-minute Cut of our Show

NAMT in the News

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NAMT Press: Annaleigh Ashford, Heidi Blickenstaff, Josh Grisetti and Mary Testa Populate NAMT Musicals

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Preparing Orchestrations and Arrangements

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FESTIVAL COUNTDOWN: Cutting Down Your Show

Festival Shows in the News

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A Playwright’s Well-Traveled Valentine to Broadway

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NAMT Press: Festival of New Musicals Announces Its Roster

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NAMT Press: Public Theater, Goodspeed Musicals and More Score 2014 NAMT Grants

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Musical Gift Giving this Holiday Season