We are thrilled to announce 11 awards granted from the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals (formerly known as the National Fund for New Musicals), and six awards granted from the Innovation & Exploration Fund. Now in its 11th year, this year the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals (FYFNM) is providing grants totaling $70,000 to organizations across the country. The Innovation & Exploration Fund (I&EF) is providing grants totaling $12,000 to organizations nationwide.
NAMT Executive Director Betsy King Militello stated: “We are honored and excited to support our member theatres both as they work to develop innovative and provocative new musicals, and as they explore ideas to create new best practices in the field. With these grants, we have now awarded 162 grants totaling $563,000 to NAMT members across the country. These projects will join a growing list of important new musicals and initiatives supported by NAMT’s granting programs.”
Pittsburgh CLO
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NAMT News
NAMT New Musicals Month: Week In Review
This week we kicked off our New Musicals Month with Pittsburgh CLO, Theater Latte Da, Barrington Stage Company and the writing teams of two of our festival shows this year – The River is Me & 17 Again. In case you missed it, here’s our week in review!
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NAMT News
New Work in Progress: Pittsburgh CLO & Up and Away
This month, we chatted with Mark Fleischer and Van Kaplan, respectively the Producing Director and Executive Producer at Pittsburgh CLO, about their new works program. We learned more about the program’s history, their upcoming festival of new works, and their spring world premiere musical, Up and Away, written by Kevin Hammonds and Kristin Bair. The PCLO new works festival will have its inaugural season this spring in conjunction with the NAMT Spring Conference.
Festival Alumni in the News
Festival Shows in the News
Members in the News
NAMT News
Broadway's Most Sought-After Young Star Is A NAMT Member
The NAMT staff had heard of the legendary Broadway baby Twan Baker, of course, but until last week’s in-depth New York Times profile of him, we didn’t realize he had such deep NAMT roots! From the Times:
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NAMT News
2016-2017 National Fund for New Musicals Grants Announced
We are thrilled to announce eleven awards granted from the National Fund for New Musicals, a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals. Now in its eighth year, the Fund will provide grants totaling $43,000 to twelve organizations across the country.
NAMT Executive Director Betsy King Militello stated: “We are honored and excited to support our member theatres as they work with this inspiring group of writers to develop these innovative and provocative new musicals. With these grants, we have now awarded 88 grants totaling $358,500. These projects will join a growing list of important new musicals added to the canon with support from our National Fund for New Musicals.
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NAMT News
New Work in Progress: JUDGE JACKIE JUSTICE
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