The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) has announced the official selections for its 21st Annual Festival of New Musicals taking place on Monday, October 19 and Tuesday, October 20, 2009.
At NAMT's Festival, New York City's longest-running musical theatre festival, leading theatre producers from across the world come together for this industry-only event to discover eight new musicals presented in 45-minute staged readings over two days. Since 1989, the Festival has presented over 225 musicals and 330 writers, and 80% of these shows have found subsequent developmental and full productions; tours; and licensing agreements as a direct result of the Festival.
This year's 2009 Festival of New Musicals includes works by five Jonathan Larson Award winners (Mark Allen, Gaby Alter, Susan DiLallo, Peter Mills and Stephen Weiner), two Obie Award winners (Kyle Jarrow and Stephen Weiner), a Fred Ebb Award Winner (Peter Mills), and a Richard Rodgers Award winner (Stephen Weiner).
The musicals selected for this year's Festival are:
BAND GEEKS!
Book by Tommy Newman & Gordon Greenberg
Lyrics by Gaby Alter & Tommy Newman
Music by Mark Allen, Gaby Alter & Tommy Newman
Concept by Tommy Newman
SYNOPSIS- Band Geeks! is a high-stepping tribute to high school marching bands and misfits everywhere. With just nine members and dwindling funds, the Cuyahoga High Marching Beavers are close to extinction. When a troubled athlete is relegated to their ranks, Elliott, the tuba-playing band captain and Laura, his best friend, must find a way to unite the band, overcome their pride and embrace their inner geek.
FACTORY GIRLS
by Creighton Irons and Sean Mahoney
SYNOPSIS - At the dawn of the American Industrial Revolution in 1844, Sarah Bagley leaves her New Hampshire farm to work, socialize, and write with thousands of young women in the growing textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. When conditions deteriorate, Sarah risks everything they have gained to fight the "soulless corporation." With rock, funk and folk music, Factory Girls captures the passion and upheaval of a time in American history when, for better or worse, our country chose to leave The Farm behind.
HOSTAGE SONG
Book by Clay McLeod Chapman
Music & Lyrics by Kyle Jarrow
SYNOPSIS-- Bound and blindfolded in a war-torn country, two hostages take refuge in music, memory and each other in this new indie-rock musical. But the further into their fantasy world the two of them go, the more the space between reality and escape blurs.
HOW CAN YOU RUN WITH A SHELL ON YOUR BACK?
by Michael Mahler & Alan Schmuckler
Synopsis-- After-school detention becomes an adventure when a stranger shows six students the power of a good story. The Tortoise and the Hare, The Ant and the Grasshopper, Androcles and the Lion... Aesop's timeless fables take an entertaining turn in this new musical that reveals universal truths through appealing, age-old allegories.
IRON CURTAIN
Book by Susan DiLallo
Music by Stephen Weiner
Lyrics by Peter Mills
SYNOPSIS-- New York, 1954: two hapless songwriters are kidnapped by the KGB, brought to Moscow, and forced to "fix" a Communist Propaganda musical. Iron Curtain is a madcap farce filled with divas and dominatrixes, secrets and spies, and mishaps and misdirects, as our heroes desperately try to get back home.
Note: Iron Curtain received a Jonathan Larson Award for its Book.
IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU
Book by Brian Hargrove
Music by Barbara Anselmi
Lyrics by Brian Hargrove and others
