28th Annual Festival of New Musicals

Scotty Arnold is a musical theater writer and founding member of the Musical Theatre Factory. He has collaborated on the full-length musicals WHEN WE’RE GONE (fka MORTALITY PLAY; words by Alana Jacoby; NAMT Festival ’16, World Premiere at Lyric Theater of Oklahoma, ’18), TRIV√òYA GOLD (words by Alana Jacoby; developed at MTF, Wayne State University), EXTENDED STAY (book and co-lyrics by Jenny Stafford; developed at Winter Park Playhouse, MTF, CAP21), and THAT TIME WE FOUND A SASQUATCH IN THE WOODS (book by Nichole Jackson, lyrics by Brandon Michael Lowden; developed at MTF, Merry-Go-Round Playhouse). His play with music OSCAR & RICHARD & JOE received a sold-out concert reading at the Ravinia Festival, IL. He spent three seasons as the Resident Composer for the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and ASCAP. scottyarnold.com

Elliot Davis: Loserville (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Garrick, West End). Olivier Nominated for Best New Musical. Peter Pan (revised book), OUT THERE (Riverside Studios), Best Friends & Butterflies, (book & Music) TicketMaster Composer Award / Best New Musical Vivian Ellis Award. Current: What I Go To School For – The Busted Musical. In development: Rehab, Becoming Nancy. Radio: In another career strand Elliot is a prolific music documentary maker for the BBC. Film: Elliot’s first feature film screenplay commissioned by the BBC films in 2017 starring Geoffrey Rush. He is the inaugural recipient of the JJ Screenwriting Bursary in association with BAFTA.

MINDI DICKSTEIN is a lyricist and bookwriter perhaps best known for Broadway’s LITTLE WOMEN (licensed by MTI, Original Broadway cast album: Sh-k-boom/Ghostlight). Current projects include MAIDEN VOYAGE (New Works Provincetown), WITNESSES (California Center for the Arts, 2022), and BENNY & JOON, based on the MGM film, produced at Old Globe in 2017 (San Diego Critics nominee, best musical) and Paper Mill Playhouse (2019), and developed at Transport Group, NAMT, Theatreworks Silicon Valley, and the Goodspeed Johnny Mercer and Rhinebeck retreats. Her work has been produced and developed widely, including by Disney (TOY STORY), Second Stage (SNOW IN AUGUST), Playwrights Horizons (Steinberg Commission), The Kennedy Center, and Lincoln Center (“Hear and Now: Contemporary Lyricists”). Honors include a Larson Foundation Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and a Second Stage Klinsky Award. She was an Oscar Hammerstein Fellow at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, where she received her MFA.

Anthony has worked professionally as a lyricist and book-writer for almost 40 years with composer George Stiles. His most well-known shows are Honk! and the new songs and additional lyrics for both Mary Poppins and Half A Sixpence. Other work with Stiles includes Betty Blue Eyes, Just So, The Wind in the Willows, Travels With My Aunt, Peter Pan – A Musical Adventure, Soho Cinders, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and Soapdish. More recent work includes Becoming Nancy and Identical. Independently of Stiles, Drewe has also written lyrics for A Twist Of Fate and The Card. He completed the book for a version of the Frank Loesser musical, Where’s Charley? as well as a revised book for Peter Pan – A Musical Adventure.

Directing work includes Snoopy, The Thing About Men, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, Honk! and Just So.

Nolan Gasser is a critically acclaimed composer, pianist, and musicologist Äì most notably, the architect of Pandora Radio’s Music Genome Project and the company’s chief musicologist from its founding in 1999. He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Stanford University. His original compositions have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center, among others. Theatrical projects include the musical Benny & Joon (NAMT alum)Äîwhich next opens at the Paper Mill Playhouse on April 5, 2019 on its hopeful way to Broadway; an opera, The Secret Garden, commissioned by San Francisco Opera (2013); among others. Nolan’s book, Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste, will be released on April 30, 2019 (Macmillan Press). Beyond Pandora, Nolan has helped create two companies: Mission Measurement and Emetry, Inc. Nolan’s TEDx talk, ÄúEmpowering Your Musical TasteÄù is available on YouTube.

Matt Gould is a recipient of the Richard Rodgers Award (2012 and 2014), The Jonathan Larson Award, and ASCAP’s Dean Kay and Harold Adamson Awards. His musical Invisible Thread (fka Witness Uganda) had its NY premier at 2econd Stage Theater and its world premiere at ART. His upcoming original works include The Family Project for LA’s Center Theatre Group, and Baby Girl with Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel. Matt has performed his work around the world in Uganda, Mauritania, Japan, and across the US. A graduate of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, Matt is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer at schools and universities. @FakeMattGould

Kirsten Guenther began her writing career in Paris, where she penned the popular weekly column, “The Sexy Expat” about an American navigating/dating the French. Book and lyrics: Little Miss Fix-it (seen on NBC). Book: Measure of Success (Rockefeller Grant), Mrs. Sharp (Richard Rodgers Award); The Cable Car Nymphomaniac (Bay Area Theatre Award Nominee) and Out of My Head (Steelespring Stage Rights). She has written sketches for celebrities including James Franco, Jared Leto, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kathie Lee & Hoda, Steve Buscemi, Deion Sanders and Queen Latifah. Kirsten was a Dramatist Guild Fellow and a Disney/ASCAP participant. MFA: NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

Alana Jacoby is a musical theater lyricist and bookwriter, playwright, lighting designer, stagehand, and teacher. She has written two full-length musicals with composer Scotty Arnold: When We’re Gone (FKA Mortality Play; NAMT Festival 2016; World Premiere at the Lyric Theater of Oklahoma, 2018) and Triv√∏ya Gold (developed at the Musical Theatre Factory, Buck’s Rock Camp, and Wayne State University). Her work has been performed at Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, the Barrington Stage Company, and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. A alumna of Brown University and NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, she runs the Lighting and Sound Design program at Buck’s Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp, and is an early childhood chess tutor with Chess at 3. She is a proud member of the Musical Theater Factory and the Dramatists Guild.

Kait Kerrigan is an award-winning bookwriter, lyricist, and playwright. BROADWAY: book for THE GREAT GATSBY, WEST END: additional lyrics for THE TIME TRAVELLER’S WIFE. OFF-BROADWAY: book and lyrics for THE MAD ONES, and HENRY AND MUDGE. Other musicals include: JUSTICE; THE BAD YEARS (an immersive house party); EARTHRISE; and ROSIE REVERE, ENGINEER, AND FRIENDS. Digital: A KILLER PARTY. Plays include: FATHER / DAUGHTER, IMAGINARY LOVE, TRANSIT. Albums include THE MAD ONES, KERRIGAN-LOWDERMILK LIVE, and OUR FIRST MISTAKE, which hit #1 on the digital charts, and THE TIME TRAVELLER’S WIFE. Her songs including ÄúRun Away with MeÄù and ÄúGo TonightÄù have had millions of listens and views on digital platforms. Selected Awards and Residencies: Kleban, Jonathan Larson, Edgerton, MacDowell, Rhinebeck, and the Dramatists Guild Fellowship.

Carson Kreitzer is the recipient of a 2016 Jonathan Larson Grant for Lempicka. Current projects include Capital Crime!, a play with songs set in Gilded Age New York. She has received support from NYSCA, the NEA, TCG, and the Mellon and Toulmin foundations, as well as two Jerome and three McKnight Fellowships at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, an affiliated artist with New Georges and Clubbed Thumb, and was the first Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. Her collection, SELF DEFENSE and other plays, is available from No Passport Press.

Daniel Lazour has collaborated on four musicals with his brother Patrick, supplying the music and co-authoring the libretto. The two’s most recent musical We Live in Cairo, centering on the youth in Egypt’s 2011 revolution, was selected for the 2015 O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference and received the 2016 Richard Rodgers Award. Daniel’s other works include an opera scene (Bach and the Boy), a song cycle (Expat), and a string quartet (Chacarera), which all premiered at Columbia University. Daniel has spent time at SPACE on Ryder Farm and Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat writing and composing on piano and guitar. He studied music composition at Columbia University. He is a 2015-16 Dramatists Guild Fellow.

Patrick Lazour is a writer, lyricist and playwright. With his brother Daniel, he has written and produced four musicals including The Grand Room, which was developed and performed at the Robsham Theater Arts Center at Boston College in 2013. We Live in Cairo, about the youth movement during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution was developed at the O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference and most recently received the Richard Rodgers Award. Patrick has developed work with his brother at Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat and SPACE on Ryder Farm and is a 2015-16 Dramatists Guild Fellow. He holds a B.A. in political science and theater from Boston College. He lives in New York City.

Gordon Leary’s musicals include THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2023 Flint Repertory Theatre premiere, 2022 Theatre Row showcase), THE LONELIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD (2018 Diversionary Theatre premiere, 2016 NAMT Festival, 2015 Polyphone Festival, 2014 Ars Nova OutLoud Series), REB+VoDKa+ME (2017 Tisch New Musical Workshop, 2017 Yale Institute, 2016 Civilians’ FINDINGS Series), SOMETHING BLUE (2020 Diversionary Theatre/NAMT Frank Young Fund Workshop, 2019 Page 73, 2019 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival), PREGNANCY PACT (2012 Weston Playhouse premiere, 2011 NAMT Festival, 2011 Yale Institute, 2011 Weston New Musical Award), CHEER WARS (2015 York Theatre Company, 2009 Richard Rodgers Award), and ACROSS THE RIVER (2013 Seoul Musical Festival, 2009 Daegu International Musical Festival.) They have developed work with Page 73’s Interstate 73, SPACE on Ryder Farm, 92Y Musical Theatre Development Lab, Musical Theatre Factory, Fresh Ground Pepper’s Playground Playgroup, The Civilians’ R&D Group, Ars Nova Uncharted, and the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program. www.omfgordon.com

BREE LOWDERMILK (they/them or she/her) is a queer, transfemme, gender non-conforming musical theater writer, songwriter, and dramatist. Off-Broadway: The Mad Ones and Henry and Mudge. Upcoming projects include The Bad Years, Republic (with Michael Arden), Kill The Boy Band (with Jiehae Park), Coven of Phoenix and Faggot Medea. Other musicals The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog, Earthrise, and Rosie Revere, Engineer & Friends, written with playwright Lauren Gunderson. Her first album “Our First Mistake” charted at #1 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter chart. Other albums include “Kerrigan-Lowdermilk Live” and √¢Ç¨≈õThe Mad Ones√¢Ç¨≈• cast album. Her YouTube videos have over 25 million views. Awards include the Larson Award, Alan Menken Award, Richard Rodgers Award, and a Dramatists Guild Fellowship, and she has held residencies at MacDowell, Johnny Mercer, Theatreworks/Palo Alto and others. She is a founder of the start-up NewMusicalTheatre.com, and a member of the Dramatist Guild and ASCAP.

Julia is composer for musical theatre (and the occasional film and computer game score.) Her musicals include PREGNANCY PACT, REB+VoDKa+ME, and THE LONELIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD. She and her collaborator Gordon Leary write aggressively empathetic shows that help them understand completely foreign points of view, like Anita Bryant’s anti-gay-rights crusade, online fan communities around high school shooters, and teenage girls who decide to get pregnant together. Julia’s work has been produced at the Weston Playhouse, Diversionary Theatre, and Flint Rep, and developed through groups like Page 73, Ars Nova, the Civilians, 92Y, and exciting acronyms like MTF, NAMT, NYMF, and YIMT. She is a Larson, Rodgers, and Billie Burke award finalist, and her work has received grants from the Anna Sosenko trust, Opera America, the Dramatists Guild Foundation and the NEA. Julia holds a BA in Music from Yale and an MFA from NYU’s GMTWP. www.juliameinwald.com.

BRETT RYBACK is an actor, composer/lyricist, and writer. He is the recipient of the ASCAP Foundation’s Cole Porter Award. His musical podcast ÄúIn Strange WoodsÄù hit #1 on Apple’s fiction chart and was a 2022 iHeartRadio Podcast Award nominee for ÄúBest Fiction Podcast.Äù Works for the stage include: Arthur and Friends Make a Musical! (First Stage); Passing Through (Goodspeed); Nate the Great (Licensed by TRW); Free Speech Zone (Austin Film Festival Semifinalist); Joe Schmoe Saves the World (NAMT, ASCAP/Dreamworks Workshop); and Liberty Inn (LA Ovation Award nomination, Best Music/Lyrics). His award-winning plays We√Ørd and A Roz By Any Other Name are both published in ÄúThe Best American Short Plays 2007-2008.Äù As an actor he originated the role of Marcus Off-Broadway in Murder for Two and has performed on film, television, and at regional theatres across America. Please visit www.brettryback.com.

With lyricist Anthony Drewe: Cameron Mackintosh/Disney’s stage production of MARY POPPINS; HONK! (Olivier Award for Best New Musical, NAMT Festival 1999); HALF A SIXPENCE; THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS; TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT; SOHO CINDERS (NAMT Festival 2016); BETTY BLUE EYES; PETER PAN Äì A MUSICAL ADVENTURE; JUST SO and their trilogy THE THREE LITTLE PIGS (NAMT Festival 2013), GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS and THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF.
In development: SOAPDISH; BECOMING NANCY.
With lyricist Paul Leigh: MOLL FLANDERS, THE THREE MUSKETEERS (NAMT Festival 1999), and TOM JONES.