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Time Magazine: The Top 10 Plays and Musicals of 2017

This week, Time Magazine released their list of the Top 10 Plays and Musicals of 2017, and two musicals in the NAMT family made the list! Come From Away (NAMT Festival ’13) by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and The Band’s Visit (NFNM Cycle 8 Production Grant recipient) by David Yazbeck and Itamar Moses respectively claimed the fourth and second spots on the list.
Both shows have been supported by NAMT members throughout their development processes. After its 2013 Festival presentation, Come From Away was first produced at La Jolla Playhouse with Junkyard Dog Productions, both NAMT members. The Broadway production claims seven NAMT members as producers, including Junkyard Dog Productions, Michael Rubinoff with Sheridan College, Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Spencer Ross, Yonge Street Theatricals, Wendy Gillespie & La Jolla Playhouse. The Band’s Visit received a Production Grant from the National Fund for New Musicals for its Off Broadway production at NAMT member Atlantic Theater Company, and bookwriter Itamar Moses is a NAMT Festival alumnus for his 2012 Festival show Nobody Loves You. Additionally, two plays produced by NAMT member The Public Theater were included in the list, including their production of Sweat which was named the number one play of the year.

The stupefying boredom of forgotten hamlet in the Israeli desert, where the residents are jolted out of their trance-like existence by a visiting band of Egyptian musicians. The inhabitants of a remote rocky island off the coast of Canada warmly embrace the passengers of 38 jets stranded there in the wake of 9/11… In this most polarized of years, a number of the best productions celebrate man’s shared humanity and the possibility of even the most entrenched enemies finding common ground and a path forward.

Visit the Time Magazine website to see the full list.

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Festival Show Update: Come From Away

In honor of Come From Away‘s upcoming Broadway opening, this month we checked in with Irene Sankoff and David Hein to see how the piece has changed since we last spoke to them after the 2013 Festival, and what’s different about preparing for a Broadway opening. We also took a look back at the show’s beginnings in a interview with Michael Rubinoff.
The last time we checked in with you both, you were preparing for Come From Away’s world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse. The show has had a whirlwind journey since then! What have been some of your favorite moments along the way?
David: La Jolla was incredible! It was our first production, our first reviews, and our first time working with most of our team.
Irene: We went from being this unknown show to people lining up for 3 hours in the hopes of getting tickets. I was walking around in a daze. Then at Seattle Rep, the theatre was much bigger and I remember the look on the cast’s faces after the blackout when the audience responded. They said after it was like being hit by a wall of sound.
David: The phone lines crashed there because of people looking for tickets. And they flew the Mayor of Gander, Newfoundland out—they declared it “Gander Day” and gave him a key to the city. Seattle was very good to us.
Irene: Ford’s Theatre in DC was surreal because there were so many politicians in the audience, from both sides of the aisle.  And they reacted the same way to this story of kindness—with laughter and tears. We also had a lot of repeat visitors—some who were survivors of the attack in D.C. and some who had lost loved ones.

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Members in the News: How to Write a Canadian Musical

Academic member Sheridan College has been doing their part to contribute to the new musical theatre landscape through the Canadian Music Theatre Project. Macleans reports on the CMTP process, interviewing composers, including Festival Alumnus Brian Hill (Fest ’07, The Story of My Life), to highlight how Sheridan is uniquely positioned to help writers develop new shows:

Canadian writer Brian Hill (Broadway’s The Story of My Life), who has workshopped two musicals at Sheridan, says the developmental community is “buzzing” about the CMTP. “Michael Rubinoff has created something rare and wonderful,” he notes.
Influenced by programs like Northwestern University’s American Music Theatre Project [also a NAMT member], the CMTP selects new musicals for a five-week workshop process, culminating in a staged reading and a demo record of the songs (an essential tool in selling a show to producers). The cast is chosen from fourth-year music theatre students, but the directors and musical directors are paid professionals. The first show Hill did there with his composer-lyricist partner, Neil Bartram, The Theory of Relativity, had its first London production last year, and the CMTP’s first show, Come From Away, is making the rounds of U.S. repertory houses.

Read more on the Macleans website.
 
Photo: A presentation of The Theory of Relativity, Music and Lyrics by Neil Bartram and Book by Brian Hill. Developed by the Canadian Music Theatre Project. (John Jones)

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