The Drama League, Drama Desk and Tony®-honored BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop announces the biannual Showcase of new songs from Workshop writers. The event will be held at the Jerry Orbach Theatre in the Snapple Theatre Center, 210 West 50th Street, June 12 at 5:00pm and is for members of the entertainment industry only. The Showcase is made possible by a generous grant from the Cameron Mackintosh Foundation.
Writers previously showcased include Best Musical Tony® Award winners Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx (Avenue Q), Tony® and Pulitzer Prize winning Edward Kleban (A Chorus Line), triple-Tony® Award winner Maury Yeston, (Nine, Titanic, Grand Hotel), eight time Oscar® winner and nine time Grammy® winner Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Little Shop of Horrors), Drama Desk Winner Carol Hall (Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,) Tony® Award winners Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime, Seussical,), Tony® and Grammy® Winners Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan (Raisin), Tony® nominees Michael Korie and Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens) and Tony® nominee, Jeff Blumenkrantz (Urban Cowboy).
Eleven new musicals and twenty-three BMI Workshop writers are included in the Showcase:
Composer Brad Alexander and Bookwriter/Lyricist Adam Mathias, are represented by See Rock City & Other Destinations, winner of the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award and 2007 BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award. The original musical, which premieres in August at Barrington Stage, ventures to tourist destinations across America, mapping out stories of sightseers who need to get a little lost in order to find themselves. Anthony Rapp (Rent) and Jill Abramovitz (Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me) perform two songs from the show.
BMI Foundation Harrington Award winning writer Stephen Sislen and Ben H. Winters' Room 16, is the true story of the unlikely friendship behind the most famous burglary of the 20th century. Sislen and Winters' Slut played the Fringe Festival and then Off-Broadway. The title song will be performed by Jenifer Foote, currently in the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line.
Raymond Bokhour, who currently plays Amos in Chicago and Simon Gray, 2007 BMI Foundation Harrington Award Winner, are adapting the 1928 Soviet play "The Suicide" by Nikokai Erdman. Their hero, an unemployed grouch, believes a suicide may be his only chance for greatness. John Cariani (Fiddler on the Roof) joins Christine Bokhour (Chicago, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) performing "Hold the Pity Pudding." Raymond Bokhour also performs "Crowd Control" by Tony® nominated writer Jeff Blumenkrantz.
The Kid, based on the book by Village Voice columnist Dan Savage, and currently in development by The New Group, has lyrics by BMI Foundation Harrington Award Winner Andy Monroe and music by Jack Lechner. Monroe is also showcased as a composer/lyricist of Drive, a new musical which takes place for the most part in automobiles. "Really Nice Guy" is performed by Kristin Maloney (Back Home, the War Brides Musical) joining Nick Spangler, who played Matt in the 2006 production of The Fantasticks and will reprise his role in the production reopening at the Jerry Orbach Theatre.
Performer Kristen Maloney is also represented as a lyricist with composer Robert Maggio. Their song "He Needs Me" is from a new musical which examines a marriage undergoing unusual stress when the husband enrolls in a ballroom dancing class. Performers are Tim Ewing (Mamma Mia), Jennifer Zimmerman: (Les Miserables) and Elizabeth Broadhurst (Annie).
Writers Diane Dalton and Andy Karl, a cast member of Legally Blonde, are adapting the film "My Blue Heaven," which starred Steve Martin as a fish-out-of-water in the witness protection relocation program. The song, "Oh, My Friggin' God" features both the writers and Aaron Galligan-Stierle (How the Grinch Stole Christmas),Lindsay Nicole Chambers (Legally Blonde) Matthew Rische (Legally Blonde, Chicago) Brian Michael Hoffman (Seussical the Muscial).
The Dirty Hippie Jam Band Project, an original musical about a gaggle of modern-day neo-hippies who follow a Phish-style band around the country. The composer is Dan Israel and lyricist/bookwriter is Phoebe Kreutz. Sandie Rosa (Wanda's World) and Bret Carr sing "It's the Drugs" with backup from Raymond Bokhour.
The Thing About Joe, music by Randy Klein, book and lyrics by Matthew Hardy, tells the story of Joe Christiansen from Preston, Idaho, who rebels against his pill pushing psychiatrist mother and journeys to New York City to pursue his dream of becoming a great Maitre d'. Kevin B. McGlynn, veteran of Forbidden Broadway performs "Some Girls." Klein is a multi-Emmy® and Gold Record Composer and Steinway Concert artist. Hardy is a performer-writer hyphenate currently touring in Cats.
Chris Boal and Andrew Sherman are writer/performers of "The Way Things Are" from National Geographic, The Musical. Grammy Award Winner Sherman is the composer of Debbie Does Dallas and Boal is the author of the 2006 Off-Broadway play Crazy for the Dog, recently seen in Atlanta.
Broadway conductor-arranger Fred Thaler and lyricist/performer Robert Yarnall (Political Idol) are writers of "I Do What I Do," from Living Color, a time travel musical where "Father Knows Best" meets "Back to the Future.
China Doll Overdrive is a new musical based adapted from the play of the same name by Michael P. Hidalgo. The duet "Women Leave," written by Linda Dowdell and Sara Wordsworth will be performed by BMI Workshop Composer Adam Overett (Light in the Piazza) and Mick Bleyer.
The event is a co-production the BMI Workshop and Musical Mondays Theatre Lab. BMI Producers are Kleban Award Winner Patrick Cook, Artistic Coordinator of the Workshop and Frank Evans, Special Events Coordinator. Cook garnered an Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination for Captains Courageous, produced by Manhattan Theatre Club. Evans, is a BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award winning lyricist and has been named on Best of The Year Lists in The Palm Beach Post, The Norwich Bulletin and TheatreWeek. Michael Bush, Artistic Director of the Emelin Theatre, directs the Showcase. Bush served as director of artistic production for Manhattan Theatre Club and producing artistic director of Charlotte Repertory Theatre. through 2004. Musical Mondays, founded by Bick Goss, produced early versions of this season's Wanda World and Next to Normal. Now in its tenth anniversary year, Musical Mondays develops new musicals and its season is hosted by the Snapple Theater Center.
In addition to its Tony®, Drama Desk and Drama League honors, The Workshop has been deemed "the Harvard of musical theatre" by The New York Times, the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop was founded by performing right organization BMI and the late Lehman Engel, dean of American musical theatre, to create a setting where new writers could learn their craft. It is the birthplace of such classic musicals as A Chorus Line, Nine, Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, and Avenue Q. The Workshop was recently honored with a special 2006 Drama Desk Award for "nurturing, developing and promoting new talent for the musical theater," and also received the 2005 Drama League Award
Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI) is an American performing right organization that represents more than 375,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in all genres of music and more than 6.5 million works. BMI's latest financial results, $839 million in performing right collections for its 2007 fiscal year, were the highest for any copyright organization in the world. BMI has represented the most popular and beloved music from around the world for over 65 years. The non-profit-making U.S. corporation collects license fees from businesses that use music, which it then distributes as royalties to the musical creators and copyright owners it represents.
