The annual Festival of New Musicals will held in New York City on Thursday, October 21 and Friday, October 22, 2010 for a select audience of NAMT members, producers and other musical theatre industry professionals.

NAMT’s Festival is the premiere industry event, which brings together theatre industry leaders to discover eight new musicals in 45-minute staged readings.  According to American Theatre Magazine, “It’s an industry-only event, and it happens for only two days, but it makes a major impact in the world of musical theatre.”

BIG RED SUN
Book and Lyrics by John Jiler
Music by Georgia Stitt

Directed by Peter Flynn
Music Direction by Mary Mitchell Campbell

A teenage boy unearths a dark family secret as he searches for his long-lost father through the bewildering landscape of post-WWII America… where innocence has vanished, and the simple melodies of Kern and Berlin have been replaced by the dizzying energy of jazz and the birth of rock-and-roll.

Big Red Sun was the winner of the Harold Arlen Award from ASCAP, and has been developed at ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and was presented at Oklahoma City University. 

THE BOWERY BOYS
Book and Lyrics by David H. Bell
Music by Jeremy Cohen
Co-creator Aaron Thielen

Directed by Dominic Missimi
Music Direction by Brad Haak

A musical that follows the journey of Dick, a streetwise kid, and his gang of bootblacks trying to "Make It ThroughThe Day."  The backdrop of the show is Five Points New York in 1876. Dick rescues a young English girl, who through a series of unfortunate circumstances, is abandoned by her devious step-father and his compatriots. Despite being faced with many dangerous adventures, the two never lose hope of realizing a brighter future. The show follows Dick and the boys trying to protect Mary and reunite her with the only family she has left, her Grandfather. Loosely based on the writings of American writer Horatio Alger, this musical deals with the great distance between the American mythology and the much darker and more ominous truth about life in the tenements of the time.

The Bowery Boys was created and developed by the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois, who provided multiple table reads and, in the summer of 2008, sponsored a three week workshop at the American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern University.  The show had a full production at the Marriott Theatre in December 2008 and was nominated for three Jeff Awards including Best New Work.

THE GIVER
Book and Lyrics by Nathan Christensen
Music by Scott Murphy

12-year-old Jonas lives in a perfect world, without pain, conflict or loneliness. But after being assigned to carry the memories of life before “Sameness,” an ability learned from a mysterious man called the Giver, Jonas must choose between his perfect community and a world that contains both beauty and pain.

The Giver was given a two-week developmental workshop by Theatreworks/USA in 2006, followed by an additional week of developmental work in 2007.  CAP21 sponsored a series of table readings in 2008 and 2009, followed by a concert reading in 2009.

HEARTBREAKERS
Book by Robert Cary and Benjamin Feldman
Music by David Gursky
Lyrics by Robert Cary

Directed by Christopher Ashely
Music Direction by Eric Stern

Sexy female con artist Max Connor has created a perfect scam:  she’ll marry eligible bachelors, deny them sex, and then discover them in a compromising position with another, younger woman – leading to hefty annulment settlements.  But Max’s sex-starved husbands don’t know that the “other woman” is actually Max’s 22 year-old daughter Page, who’s in on the con.  Page wants independence, but when Max finds out the IRS wants back taxes, she convinces Page to come with her to Palm Beach for one last job.  All goes according to plan, until Page breaks the most important rule: she falls in love.  

The NAMT Festival presentation will be the premiere of Heartbreakers.

LIZZIE BORDEN
Music by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt
Lyrics by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner
Book and Additional Music by Tim Maner
Conceived by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner

Directed by Victoria Bussert
Music Direction by Matt Hinkley

A rock show retelling of the bloody legend of America’s first and favorite axe-wielding double-murderess and Victorian hometown girl, Lizzie Borden. Featuring four fierce rocker girls and a live band, this driving musical reveals why Lizzie took up that axe and how she became an American folk hero.

An early version of Lizzie Borden was seen at the Ohio Theatre, produced by Tiny Mythic Theatre Company, followed by a full production at HERE.  In 2006, with the encouragement and support of producers Hillary Richard and Peter McCabe, the piece was re-visited, workshopped and expanded into a full-length two-act musical, which premiered at the Living Theatre in 2009. This production was named in The Advocate’s “Top Ten of 2009” and was nominated for three Drama Desk Awards.

PLAY IT COOL
Book by Martin Casella and Larry Dean Harris (conceiver)
Lyrics by Mark Winkler
Music by Phillip Swann
Additional Music by Jim Andron, Marilyn Harris, Emilio Palame and Larry Steelman

Direction by Sharon Rosen
Music Direction by Joe Baker

Everyone’s got a secret at Mary’s Hideaway, an underground nightclub in sexy, sultry, repressive 1953 Hollywood.  Inspired by film noir and driven by a sizzling jazz score, this story of five very ambitious people is about finding the courage to be who you are. You just need to… Play It Cool.

Play It Cool was first presented as a full production at the Celebration Theatre (nominated for numerous awards including a GLAAD Award), followed by readings at the Zipper Theatre, Snapple Theatre and the York Theatre.  The 2008 production at the New York Musical Theatre Festival was nominated for a GLAAD Award and NYMF Awards. 

RED CLAY
Music by Scott Ethier
Book and Lyrics by Jeff Hughes

Direction by Daniella Topol and Jerry Dixon

Set in the six months leading up to Rosa Parks’ historic ride on a Montgomery bus, Red Clay uses a new jazz and gospel-infused score to tell the story of the ordinary Americans who changed this nation in extraordinary ways.

Red Clay was the recipient of the 2009 Richard Rodgers Award and received a co-produced workshop with Queens Theatre in the Park and Playwrights Horizons in the fall of that year. It will have a staged reading this August as part of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s New Works Festival.

THE TROUBLE WITH DOUG
Book and Music by Will Aronson
Book and Lyrics by Daniel Maté

Direction by Victoria Clark
Music Direction by Greg Brown

The Trouble With Doug is a contemporary comedic reimagining of Kafka’s Metamorphosis in which a happy, healthy young man transforms inexplicably into a giant talking slug.  Thrust together awkwardly under the same roof, Doug, his family, and his fiancée all struggle to understand and respond to this strangest of crises.

A staged reading of The Trouble With Doug was presented at Goodspeed Musicals' Festival of New Artists in January 2008. CAP 21's Professional Theatre Company presented a public reading in November 2008 and a workshop production in June 2009. Originally Produced at CAP21/THE SHOP.

Festival Announcement Press Release - 7/7/10 (PDF)

For more information about these shows, please contact info@namt.org.

The Festival of New Musicals has received a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

	The Festival of New Musicals is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State's 62 counties.
	The Festival is also supported in part by the Dramatists Guild Fund.

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