The 20th annual Festival of New Musicals was held in New York City on Monday, October 20 and Tuesday, October 21 for an invited audience of NAMT members and musical theatre producers.
Click here to see photos from the 2008 Festival of New Musicals.
BARNSTORMER
Book & Lyrics by Cheryl L. Davis
Music by Douglas J. Cohen
 Before Amelia Earhart, there was Bessie Coleman -- the first Black aviatrix who rose from the cotton fields of Texas and the barbershops of Chicago to finally conquer the skies of France. Her brief but dynamic life inspired the disenfranchised to pursue their dreams, including her own nephew who became a Tuskegee Airman.
Act One of Barnstormer was presented at the York Theater Company in March 2003. The Lark Play Development Center received a 2004 NAMT Producer-Writer Initiative Award and a 2005 Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award to support Barnstormer's development, culminating in a reading, April 2005, and a BareBones presentation in November 2005. The Village Theatre funded a developmental workshop in April, 2007. All presentations were directed by Jerry Dixon. Cheryl Davis received the Kleban Award for her libretto and Douglas Cohen received the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust, which partially funded a reading in Hartford Stage Company's Brand:New Festival, November 2007. Barnstormer is scheduled to be presented as part of in Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s acclaimed Southern Writers' Project in May 2009.
Kenita R. Miller (foreground) and Stu James in rehearsal for Barnstormer.
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BEATSVILLE
Music & Lyrics by Wendy Leigh Wilf
Book by Glenn Slater
Based on the Roger Corman film A Bucket of Blood
 Greenwich Village, 1959—Playground of bohemians, beatniks and jazzbos. Tragically square Walter Paisley finds that his clay figures, sculpted nudes, and papier-mâché busts bring him the acceptance he desperately yearns for. But what if the world discovers that Walter’s body of work consists of actual bodies? A bebop-inflected black comedy/satire.
The 20th Annual Festival of New Musicals marked the debut performance of Beatsville.
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Beth Malone in rehearsal for Beatsville. |
THE CUBAN AND THE REDHEAD
By Robert Bartley and Danny Whitman
 Escaping the bloodshed of his native Island, a young Cuban boy sets sail on a turbulent journey that leads him all the way to Hollywood and into the arms of a fiery, redheaded movie star named Lucille Ball. At the climax of The Cuban and The Red Head, Desi and Lucy put their money, their trust and their dreams on the line in a gamble to save one thing—their marriage. They risk it all on an untested medium called television. Can these two star crossed lovers blaze a path that defies Hollywood and history to be together? (formerly known as Dance With Me).
The Cuban and The Redhead most recently was featured in the Festival of New American Musicals starring Jai Rodriguez, Fleur Philips and Leslie Easterbrook in Los Angeles in July of 2008, following a staged reading at New York City’s York Theatre Company featuring Tony Yazbeck and Jen Colella, and was a finalist in 2008 Eugene O’Neil Music Theatre Conference. Prior to this,The Cuban and The Redhead (formerly titled Dance With Me) was seen in various incarnations in readings at Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Allenberry Playhouse and Theatre Arlington.
Tony Yazbeck and Jenn Colella in rehearsal for The Cuban and the Redhead.
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THE LEGEND OF STAGECOACH MARY
By Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore
 Ex-slave Mary Fields turns the idea of the real Wild West hero on its head when she travels to 1880’s Montana to find freedom, adventure and her long-lost best friend. Along the way, she discovers a gaggle of square-dancing nuns and a town full of cowboys in need of a little lesson in the American Dream.
The Legend of Stagecoach Mary received its first public reading May 2007 at Theater Row Studios in New York City under the direction of Elizabeth Lucas and produced by Isaac Hurwitz.
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Jose Llana with (R-L) Danielle Lee Greaves, Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Saltzberg and Stephanie D'Abruzzo, in rehearsal for The Legend of Stagecoach Mary. |
ORDINARY DAYS
By Adam Gwon
 When Deb loses her most precious possession—the notes to her graduate thesis—she unwittingly starts a chain of events that turns the ordinary days of four New Yorkers into something extraordinary. Told through a series of intricately connected songs and vignettes, Ordinary Days is an original musical about growing up and enjoying the view.
Ordinary Days received its world premiere at Pennsylvania Centre Stage in summer 2008, and will receive its UK premiere at the Finborough Theatre in London in fall 2008. Ordinary Days was selected for the 2008 ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop, curated by Stephen Schwartz, and was previously workshopped at the Penn State New Musicals Festival and New York Theatre Barn. Ordinary Days was written during a fellowship at the Dramatists Guild, under the mentorship of Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty, and Craig Carnelia.
Writer Adam Gwon, Musical Director Rick Bertone, Director Matthew Kaylor Toronto, Jared Gertner and Kate Wetherhead in rehearsal for Ordinary Days.
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"It’s without exaggeration that I describe NAMT as one of the most remarkable opportunities that exists for musical theater writers. NAMT is unique, and incredibly effective: it fosters that most crucial and elusive of relationships – between writers and producers of new work – and does it on a national level for writers at all stages of their careers.”
-Adam Gwon |
PAMELA’S FIRST MUSICAL
Book by Wendy Wasserstein
Lyrics by David Zippel
Music by Cy Coleman
Based upon the book by Wendy Wasserstein, illustrated by Andrew Jackness
 Pamela’s First Musical is the story of a young suburban girl who feels out of place. Her mother has passed away and she lives with her father and two brothers who don’t understand her. Pamela’s active fantasy life and infatuation with Broadway keeps her from being too sad or lonely. On the occasion of her 11th birthday she learns that her father is about to re-marry. Just when Pamela thinks her entire world is going to crash, her eccentric Aunt Louise arrives. Aunt Louise is a New York fashion designer who sweeps Pamela off to New York City and her first Broadway musical. There, she meets producers, writers, actors, directors and choreographers and discovers the world of Broadway Theater and its off-stage and on-stage magic. As Aunt Louise says “A Broadway Musical can cure anything.” Pamela’s trip to New York inspires her to write and direct her own musical and to “collaborate” with her blended family, which, ultimately, brings them all together.
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Karen Mason and Lila Coogan in rehearsal for Pamela's First Musical. |
SEE ROCK CITY & OTHER DESTINATIONS
Book & Lyrics by Adam Mathias
Music by Brad Alexander
 Fueled by a brilliant pop-rock score, See Rock City & Other Destinations ventures to tourist destinations across America, mapping out stories of sightseers who need to get a little lost in order to find themselves. From Coney Island to Mt. McKinley, the Alamo to Niagara Falls—get ready to take the leap! Winner of the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre
See Rock City & Other Destinations started as a ten-minute musical called “Greetings from Niagara Falls,” written for Raw Impressions in 2004. Two pieces were added, and in 2005, “See Rock City” was presented by Golden Fleece Ltd. The following year, Musical Mondays produced 45 minutes of the show at 45th Street Theater. A staged reading of the complete musical was presented at Chelsea Studios in 2007, as part of The BMI Foundation’s Jerry Bock Award. After winning the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award, the show was chosen for Barrington Stage Company’s Musical Theatre Lab, mentored by William Finn.
Skylar Astin and Wesley Taylor in rehearsal for See Rock City.
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THE YELLOW WOOD
Book by Michelle Elliott
Music by Danny Larsen
Lyrics by Elliott and Larsen
 17-year-old Adam is frantically trying to memorize Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" before English, but because he didn't take his Ritalin, he can't get much farther than the "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..." before a fantastic wood begins coming to life in his school. Desperate to prove he can turn his life around, Adam struggles to get beyond his ADD, his cultural heritage and his unique but unruly imagination. Adam is pulled deeper and deeper into the Yellow Wood, where he must face the reality of who he is and decide who he will ultimately become.
The Yellow Wood was first presented at the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program in April, 2005 and received workshop productions at NYU in June 2005 and the Kennedy Center in August 2005. It received of the 2006 Richard Rodgers Development Award and the 2006 Daryl Roth Award. The show was presented by San Francisco Arts in April 2007 and was in the New York Musical Theatre Festival in September 2007, where it was directed by BD Wong. In August 2008, The Yellow Wood will be part of the Festival of New Musicals at the Village Theatre in Issaquah, Washington.
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Danny Larsen and Morgan Weed in rehearsal for The Yellow Wood |
Press Release (PDF)
Photos by Ric Kallaher.
Logo design for Barnstormer, The Legend of Stagecoach Mary, Ordinary Days and See Rock City and Other Destinations by Drew Padrutt for NAMT.
Logo design for Pamela's First Musical by Andrew Jackness.
Logo design for all other shows are by the authors.
The Festival of New Musicals is supported in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art, and by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
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