The National Alliance for Musical Theater has handed out 15 grants from the org’s National Fund for New Musicals, disbursing coin tallying $62,000 to legit troupes including Gotham’s Public Theater and L.A.’s Center Theater Group.
The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announced that the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has granted $25,000 to support NAMT’s next strategic plan. In addition to the Doris Duke grant, NAMT also received funding from Kenneth and Marleen Alhadeff Charitable Foundation ($10,000) and Stacey Mindich Productions ($5,000). The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, whose mission is to help producers and writers in the creation, development, and production of new musicals, will build on the success of the last plan, which resulted in the launch of the National Fund for New Musicals in 2009. The Fund has already awarded 17 grants to not-for-profit theatres across the country.
NAMT Executive Director Kathy Evans said, “We are incredibly honored to receive a grant for the first time from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Their generosity is instrumental in providing our Board and membership the unique opportunity to assess our organization, as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of NAMT. We plan to discover and implement concrete ways that we can build on the success of our Festival of New Musicals, National Fund for New Musicals, and other programs that support producers and writers.”
These industry insiders gathered at TheatreWorks’ rehearsal halls on Friday to discuss the process of producing a musical on the West Coast and to learn the TheatreWorks model for developing and nurturing new works from infancy to main stage premieres. Additionally, they explored the role creative producers play in bringing a new musical to the stage in a discussion lead by Greg Schaffert of 321 Theatrical Management and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang about their efforts on Great Wall, one of the musicals in development at TheatreWorks’ New Works Festival. Additionally, artists, producers, and theater representatives had the opportunity to mix, mingle, and network at a wine reception Friday evening.
At 10:30 tomorrow morning, on the rooftop of the Wyly, Dallas Theater Center artistic director Kevin Moriarty will announce to the assembled press the 2010-2011 season lineup. But — twist! — word of a 2011-2012 season offering was announced today … by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre in New York City. NAMT sent out a press release announcing eight awards from its National Fund for New Musicals, and named the DTC among them.
A new Michael John LaChiusa musical co-produced by Off Broadway’s Public Theater and two other shows in the works with Gotham troupes are among the recipients of eight grants from the National Alliance for Musical Theater.
In the org’s second year of doling out coin from its National Fund for New Musicals, grants will total $50,000 toward the development of new legit tuners at non-profit theaters that are members of NAMT.
For the second consecutive year, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded a $60,000 grant to the National Alliance for Musical Theatre to support NAMT’s 2010 Fall Conference and 22nd Annual Festival of New Musicals, which will be held in New York City. This was the highest grant awarded in the Theater and Musical Theater categories, which together comprised over 180 awards.
NAMT’s Fall Conference will bring together NAMT’s membership, which includes some of the leading professional producers of musical theatre, to learn the latest on new work development and production. At the 22nd Annual Festival of New Musicals, NAMT members will be joined by hundreds more industry professionals to see 45-minute staged readings of eight new musicals over two days. The goal of the Festival is to introduce writers to the people who can develop and produce their work. The 2009 Festival had 700 attendees, and 200 artists participated. Past Festival shows include The Drowsy Chaperone, Kingdom, Ordinary Days, The Story of My Life, Striking 12, and Vanities.
Executive Director Kathy Evans commented, “It is such an honor to receive this acknowledgement of our important work from the NEA. We are proud of our track record in helping very talented writers find further productions of their musicals. And this is also a testament to our 145 members – theatres, commercial producers, universities, and developmental organizations – who are at the forefront of the development of new musicals across the country.”
Este es el primer año que se conceden las becas ‘National Fund of New Musicals’, una fundación creada por la National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) con el objetivo de ayudar al desarrollo de nuevos musicales. La directora ejecutiva de NAMT, Kathy Evans, ha comentado “Estamos encantados, especialmente en estos tiempos económicos, de poder ayudar a estos miembros del NAMT en su trabajo con equipos creativos tan talentosos. Continuaremos incrementando las becas para hacer crecer el National Fund for New Musicals. Nos hemos anticipado ofreciendo becas anualmente y esperamos dar un fuerte impulso al teatro musical”.
NAMT ha anunciado hoy las siete entidades que recibirán estas becas para incentivar el apoyo a los teatros y a su colaboración con los creadores y productores de nuevos musicales.
A production of a new tuner by Melissa James Gibson and Michael Friedman and development workshops for new work by alums of the National Alliance for Musical Theater fest are among the seven inaugural recipients of grants from NAMT’s new National Fund for New Musicals.
Coin supporting full productions will go to two new musicals, including “Post Office,” the musical from Gibson (“[sic]”) and Civilians composer Michael Friedman, to play at Center Theater Group in a production underwritten by Broadway Across America.
Also getting a full staging, this one at Adirondack Theater Fest and underwritten by Stacey Mindich, is “Ordinary Days,” Adam Gwon’s tuner about a Gotham grad student who loses her thesis notes. Show appeared in NAMT’s annual fest of new musicals last year.
The National Alliance for Musical Theater has picked up a $60,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sum is the highest awarded for 2009 to a legit org by the NEA, which doles out coin to NAMT in support of the org’s annual fall conference and its fest of developing tuners.
The festival of new work, an industry showcase for legit producers and presenters, has played a role in the development of musicals including “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”
But how did Emma and composer-lyricist Paul Gordon get to TheatreWorks? Dig back a bit deeper, you’ll find an association of organizations that make up the National Alliance of Musical Theatre (NAMT). Emma got its start in NAMT workshops and a festival, as did another popular Playhouse production, Ace, which had a good run here, in St. Louis and at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.
I learned more about NAMT in a recent telephone interview with the organization’s director, Kathy Evans, and producer Sue Frost of Junkyard Dog Productions, who is part of the team pointing a NAMT cultivated musical version of the late 1970s drama Vanities toward a run in New York City. NAMT was founded in 1985 and is dedicated exclusively to musical theater. It has 140 members in 31 states and eight countries. Members range from theaters and presenting organizations (like Dayton’s Human Race Theatre Company) to universities (including UC’s College-Conservatory of Music and the theater program at Wright State University) and individual producers.
According to Old Globe, students and residents “will be given the opportunity to work with the author and Old Globe teaching artists to explore the art and story of Kingdom and explore elements of playwriting as hip-hop poetry, monologues and scenes. Students will also have the opportunity to create and perform their own original work.” Earlier developmental versions ofKingdom have garnered numerous accolades, including a 2008 Richard Rodgers Award, the Most Promising New Musical award at the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival.
The production was chosen to represent the United States at the 2008 International Community Arts Festival in the Netherlands last March. It also received acclaim at the 2007 NAMT (National Alliance for Musical Theater) Festival of New Musicals showcase.
“When I saw the showcase at the NAMT Festival last year, I knew that this wonderful, well crafted musical represented a great opportunity for the Globe to connect with a new audience,” stated Old Globe executive producer Louis G. Spisto. “What’s really exciting is that this new work, which has garnered so much acclaim throughout its initial development, is going to be performed both at the Globe and at a new state-of-the art 750-seat theatre in southeastern San Diego. The partnership between Lincoln High School and our creative team and staff will result in some amazing programs, as students, teachers, community residents and artists will work together throughout the development and performance schedule of Kingdom. Students and artists in southeastern San Diego will be mentored by professional hip-hop theatre artists and create their own work as part of the residency.”
One of the final projects by Wendy Wasserstein and Cy Coleman and a new musical from Glenn Slater are among the tuners to be showcased this fall in the National Alliance for Musical Theater’s 20th annual Festival of New Musicals.
Industry-only showcase, which each year presents 45-minute samples of eight developing musicals to NAMT’s membership of producers and presenters, has yielded past successes including “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” Another alum, “Vanities,” opens on Broadway in the fall.
NAMT executive director Kathy Evans was also enthusiastic about The Break Up Notebook, as well as the entire program. The other musicals included Casey at the Bat by Tom Child and Gordon Goodwin, The Chocolate Tree by Marshall Pailet and A. D. Penedo, The Gypsy King by Randy Rogel and Kirby Ward, Kingdom by Aaron Jafferis and Ian Williams, Tinyard Hill by Mark Allen and Thomas M. Newman, and Writing Arthur by David Austin.
Evans reported that “every show had a champion,” which bodes well for the repercussions from the kind of busy weekend that three years ago yielded The Drowsy Chaperone and, prior to that, introduced Striking 12, which was produced Off-Broadway last year and was well received.
Evans agreed that this year’s frame was especially interesting for having no well-known participating creators; all of them were chosen by a committee unaware of who had written what. Overall, the festival was “very successful,” she said. “There was a tremendous turnout and feedback.” As evidence, Evans said 40 to 50 of the musical theatre producing community gathered to talk about the festival the day after it closed. Just as some of the work brought the attendees to their feet, some of the pieces made them want to stick around.
If you haven’t seen — or even heard of — the musicals “The Break Up Notebook: The Lesbian Musical” or “The Story of My Life,” don’t worry. You probably will soon.
“Break Up” and “Story” were two of the most buzzed-about offerings at the industry-only annual fest of new tuners held by the Natl. Alliance for Musical Theater Oct. 7-8.
The national draw of the 19-year-old fest — which this year brought in more than 700 commercialproducers, regional theater reps and other legiters from around the country — has made the event a valuable marketplace for new musicals.
Fest alums include “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” Seven of last year’s eight productions went on to further development, with a musical incarnation of the play “Vanities” aiming for Broadway next season.
“There is no other service organization that gets this many producers in one room at one time to see a piece,” says Kent Nicholson of TheaterWorks in Silicon Valley.
Gotham company Lark Play Development Center now has a little cash with which to develop the musical “A Wonder in My Soul,” by Marcus Gardley and Scott Frankel (“Grey Gardens”), thanks to the National Alliance for Musical Theater. Org handed out grants for its 2007 Producer-Writer Initiative last week, presenting $2,500-$3,000 each to a producing org paired with the creative team of a developing tuner.
Other recipients are Ohio’s Human Race Theater Company for “Make-over,” by Kim Sherman and Darrah Cloud; Massachusetts’ SpeakEasy Stage Company for “The Woman Upstairs” by Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk; Connecticut’s Spirit of Broadway Theater for “The Enchanted Cottage,” by Kim Oler, Alison Hubbard and Thomas Edward; and Texas’ Theater Under the Stars for Michael Bobbitt and John L. Cornelius III’s “Bingo Long.”
While the NAMT festival can be considered a wonderful thing — if not a sure thing — for musical composers, lyricists and librettists, it’s also a commendable opportunity for the actors appearing before representatives of most of the country’s important presenting houses.
Helen Sneed, a former NAMT executive director, calls the event “one of the most comprehensive audiences of musical theater professionals.” She also says that the actors are not only “being seen by a group that works very closely together” but they get “a great opportunity to do a new work.”
Chris Grady, licensing head at Cameron Mackintosh International and in from London, says actors “absolutely” benefit from NAMT exposure. “If I were a casting director, I’d go to this instead of all the auditions,” he says. Tina McPhearson, vice president for programming at Dayton’s Victoria Theatre, describes the NAMT audience as “the cream of the crop.”
Perhaps the best arguments for actors on the musical comedy track to look into future festivals are the roster of actors who participated this year. Paid a flat $100 salary for what Equity limits to 20 hours of rehearsal, the performers include Marc Kudisch, Brian D’Arcy James, Douglas Sills, Lillias White, Darius de Haas, Michael Winther, Dee Hoty, Gregg Edelman, Stephen DeRosa, Jenn Harris, Megan Lawrence, Kerry Butler, Adam Heller, James Judy, Sebastian Arcelus, Megan Hilty, Sarah Stiles, and Leslie Kritzer, who was so enthusiastic she did two shows.
Because its festivals aren’t open to the general public, recognition for NAMT has remained limited to those in the know. For them, the value of NAMT festivals is clear: The organization supplies the venue, all technical support, a consulting producer from its membership, a casting director and discounted rehearsal-space rental, not to mention access to the press and the audience. Equity determines a 29-hour rehearsal and performance period for the staged reading. Actors receive $100, directors and stage managers get a small stipend, and the show’s writers can distribute CDs and copies of their scripts to the very people who can actually give a new musical some legs.
“NAMT is a kind of champion for the writer,” Evans says. “We try to make the marketplace personal by providing the interaction between writers and producers.” NAMT offers its festival alumni writers a network system: They have access to their own section of the website and can communicate with NAMT’s member producers. NAMT also functions as a liaison throughout the year. A member theatre (such as 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, TheatreWorks in California, North Shore Music Theatre in Massachusetts or the Human Race Theatre Company in Ohio) might contact NAMT and say, “I’m looking for a new musical with a cast of four.” With its huge directory of past festival offerings, NAMT can immediately offer suggested titles and contact information.
Eclecticism has been the signature of the musicals showcased at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals for the past 17 years, and this year is no exception. But this time there is one unexpected unifying element, notes Kathy Evans, the organization’s executive director.
“We certainly didn’t plan it this way and only noticed it after the fact, but almost all of the eight musicals selected to participate are set in the past,” she says. “It’s nostalgia, I suppose. And there is something very American about looking to history as a source of inspiration.”
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To date, the festival has presented more than 170 musicals and 300 writers from across the globe. Among its success stories are “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” which was seen at the festival before making its way to Broadway, and the Broadway-bound “Princesses.”
But Broadway is not the only goal. Many shows launched at the festival have moved on to lives they might not have otherwise had on the regional theatre circuit. Last year, for example, five of the eight shows earned productions at such major venues as the Ahmanson Theatre and Goodspeed Musicals.