Fall Conference 2022

In-person participants, get your badge and some coffee, make sure your app is set up, and start greeting your colleagues and friends.

Online participants, the video lounge will be open and this is a perfect time to get set up and start making connections, too!

A chance for all Fall Conference participants, in-person and online, to share what’s on their minds and set the stage for the days to come. What are some of the biggest challenges you’re facing as you head into the fall? What are some of the greatest rewards you’ve experienced producing new musicals in the last year? Come to the mic or the Zoom screen and tell your theatre’s story.

Taking a step beyond Zoom readings, Apples and Oranges presents how they are using Virtual Reality technology to develop and present new musicals and the potential implications for the future of theatrical storytelling. Using examples from their live VR family musical Winter Lights to the pre-recorded immersive VR musical The Calling, speakers Tim and Pamela Kashani, Alani iLongwe and Tyler Heaton will discuss the process for creating the shows in VR as well as tools and techniques to help NAMT members explore incorporating virtual reality into their development and production practices.

Barriers to entry in the theatre are nothing new, but something has changed in the last two years, for audiences, artists and administrators. Or have frictions that have always been there simply been newly exposed? How are we welcoming people back to the theatre and cultivating new audiences at the same time? What positive changes are we seeing? What work still has to be done?

(NAMT Members Only)

Come for important updates on the state of NAMT and vote on the new slate of Board members and other important business.

Two years after a racial awakening, many theatre companies are talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, justice… (you name it), but where is the ACTION? Join us for a facilitated conversation with two NAMT member theatres who are on active IDEA journeys. Hear about the successes, the ongoing challenges and everything in between.

We talk about wanting to bring in new audiences but are we really developing work they want to see? Or maybe more importantly that they want to perform? Where is the work for high schools about high school students? Are there vibrant roles for actors of all ages? Are the communities we’re trying to reach truly being represented? We tell writers to write what they know, but whose voices are we telling them we value by what we produce?

Meet the writers and learn about the shows of the 34th Annual Festival of New Musicals!

Is this a great time or a terrible time to be producing new musicals? If we’re all rethinking how we engage our audiences, what other strategies can we rethink? What can we learn from other industries and businesses about the last year of change? How can we lean into opportunity instead of hiding from misfortune. Our panelists will discuss the new landscape for risk and growth for producers, artists and audiences.

Say thank you to some NAMT legends and meet their successors. Learn how they successfully passed the baton during a time of turmoil, and what changes are on the horizon at their organizations.