17th Annual Festival of New Musicals

Cheryl Coons is the Chicago Regional Representative for the Dramatists Guild. She has written lyrics and/or book for more than a dozen original musicals, including River’s End (ASCAP Foundation Harold Arlen Musical Theatre Award, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, Theatre for the American Musical Award), At Wit’s End (Carbonell Award), Sylvia’s Real Good Advice (Joseph Jefferson Award), Female Problems  (After Dark Award), and Phantom of the Country Opera, published by Music Theater International. Her work has appeared on the stages of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Northlight Theatre, the Marriott Theatre at Lincolnshire, Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace, Florida Stage and Marin Theatre Company. Her original musicals have been developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Music Theater Conference, and she is a two-time participant in the ASCAP workshops in Los Angeles and Chicago. She has had two projects featured in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s annual Festival of New Musicals, and her musical River’s End was a featured selection at the New York Music Theatre Festival, where it was honored with the Theatre for the American Musical Award. Cheryl appeared at Carnegie Hall, singing her original songs in an evening sponsored by ASCAP and hosted by Michael Feinstein. She has served as an animateur for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Chicago Voices program, a mentor/instructor for the Writing the Musical Class at Northwestern University, and an instructor of musical theatre writing at Columbia College Chicago. She designed and taught a curriculum for musical theatre writing for Chicago Dramatists, where she has been a Resident Playwright since 2008, as well as a series of musical theatre writing and appreciation classes and for Porchlight Music Theatre. She is a Program Manager and Teaching Artist with Storycatchers Theatre, working with incarcerated youth at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center.

Ryan Cunningham is a Jonathan Larson Award winner, a two-time MAC Award nominee for Best Song, and a Drama Desk nominee for Outstanding Lyrics. His two musicals with Joshua Salzman, I Love You Because and Next Thing You Know, have been produced in New York and London and have been translated into six languages and mounted around the world. Their new musical, The Legend of New York, has been workshopped at Millikin University, NYU and Northwestern. With Charles Antin, he has written the plays Half-Married and Television’s Greatest Playwright. As an advertising creative director he has worked on the campaigns for some of Broadway’s biggest hits including Wicked, Jersey Boys and Matilda. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son.

Composer, playwright and pianist Andrew Gerle won the 2012 Kleban Award for outstanding librettist for his show GLORYANA, which also won a 2011 Richard Rodgers Award. He has also won three other Rodgers Awards for THE TUTOR (book and lyrics by Maryrose Wood). With lyricist Eddie Sugarman, he won a Jonathan Larson Award for their show, MEET JOHN DOE (NAMT 2005, cast album on Broadway Records), and he received the first Burton Lane Fellowship for Young Composers from the Theater Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. As a musical director, he has worked on dozens of Off-Broadway, regional and touring productions, and was heard as the “hands” of Coalhouse Walker, Jr., in the recent Tony Award-winning revival of Ragtime. He is the author of The Enraged Accompanist’s Guide to the Perfect Audition, and is on the faculty of Yale University, where he teaches musical theater performance and songwriting.

Jenny Giering’s current musical commissions include Summerland (book by Sean Barry & Laura Eason, lyrics by Sean Barry, directed by Amanda Dehnert) for Chicago Shakespeare Theater; and Alice Bliss (book by Laura Harrington, lyrics by Adam Gwon, directed by Mark Brokaw) for Playwrights Horizons. Her other scores include The Mistress Cycle (produced at Apple Tree Theater, New York Musical Theater Festival); Crossing Brooklyn (commissioned and produced by The Boston Music Theater Project, also produced by The Transport Group; Kleban Award for best libretto); Alice Unwrapped (commissioned by Premieres, Inc. and produced at the Zipper Theater with Jennifer Damiano); Saint-Ex (2011 World Premiere at The Weston Playhouse Theater Company, Weston VT, Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, ASCAP/Dreamworks Musical Theater Workshop, Sundance’s White Oak Workshop). Her incidental scores include The Tempest (Shakespeare Theater, directed by Ethan McSweeney), As You Like It (Chicago Shakespeare Theater, directed by Gary Griffin). More info at: www.jennygiering.com

Richard Oberacker is currently the conductor of Cirque Du Soleil’s Ka in Las Vegas. His musicals as composer and co-author include The Gospel According to Fishman (Signature Theatre), Dracula (Cincinnati Conservatory), In That Valley (NAMT Fest ‘99), Journey to the West (NYMF), Ace (NAMT Fest ‘05, The Old Globe, Cincinnati Playhouse, Repertory Theater of St. Louis, Signature Theatre) and The Parenting Project (Cincinnati Fringe Festival, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati). Theater scores include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter Pan and The Trojan Women, as well as new works for the Nevada Ballet Theatre.

Joshua Salzman is a Jonathan Larson Award winner and a two-time MAC Award nominee for Best Song. His two musicals with Ryan Cunningham, I Love You Because and Next Thing You Know, have been produced in New York and London and have been translated into six languages and mounted around the world. Their new musical, The Legend of New York, has been workshopped at Millikin University, NYU and Northwestern. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two daughters.

Lee Summers has directed productions regionally and in numerous New York venues, most recently On Kentucky Avenue at CUNY’s Aaron Davis Hall (2018). As a writer/composer, his works include Ella, First Lady of Song, conceived and directed by Maurice Hines starring Freda Payne (Delaware Theatre 2018); The Bayard Rustin Musical, songs recently premiered at Lincoln Center; conceiver/co-librettist/co-composer-lyricist/lead producer of Off-Broadway’s From My Hometown (8 AUDELCO Nominations); co-librettist/lyricist/composer, The Funkentine Rapture, for NAMT starring Billy Porter; lyricist/librettist for Pangaea, 2017 Bingham Theatre Competition winner/ Marymount production, 2018. His Broadway debut was in the Original Dreamgirls, reprising for the 20th Anniversary performance/recording with Audra McDonald and others. TV and film roles include ”Blue Bloods,” “Boardwalk Empire” and “Malcolm X.” Summers, former adjunct professor for Motlow College, presently works at NRDC. He is an alum of Tennessee State University, BA from SUNY/ESC and MFA from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.

Robert Taylor is a graduate of Holland’s Royal Conservatory, Union College, the University of Bonn and Princeton. He has taught foreign languages and ornithology in New York, English and music in China, served as music critic for the Albany Times Union, founded and directed several non-profits, worked as a freelance musician and writer in Manhattan and a translator in Europe and Asia. As lyricist and co-author, his musicals include Ace (NAMT Fest ‘05, Cincinnati Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Old Globe, Signature Theatre), Journey to the West (NYMF) and The Parenting Project (Cincinnati Fringe Festival, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati).