NYMF Announces 2010 Full Slate Of Musicals, Readings, Special Events

The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) has announced the full slate of 27 musical productions, a developmental reading series and special events for their seventh annual festival. This year's Festival will begin September 27th and continue through October 17th. A full breakdown of this year's performances follows.

Newly added full productions include Fellowship!, My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, Special Letter, Therapy Rocks, V-Day and the dance musical Petrouchka.

Special Letter marks the second year that NYMF has been in partnership with the Daegu International Musical Festival (DIMF) in South Korea. Special Letter was originally presented at DIMF in 2009, and was the winner of the 3rd annual DIMF Guarantee Premiere Homegrown Musical Award and the Korean Musical Award for Best Book.

Notable Special Events include My Life: Today, by participants in Rosie O'Donnell's "Rosie's Broadway Kids" arts program, and Water and Power, performed by a cast of 30 students from the Marquez Charter Elementary School in Los Angeles.

NYMF will also partner with the Paley Center for Media and Prospect Theater Company to present two musical theatre events which will run in conjunction with the Festival. Both organizations have both been associated with NYMF since 2004.

Since its inception in 2004, The New York Musical Theatre Festival has premiered more than 200 new musicals - more than 60 of which have gone on to award-winning productions in New York, in regional theaters and in almost every state and in 12 countries worldwide. NYMF alum Next to Normal opened on Broadway last year, where it won 3 Tony Awards (along with 8 other nominations) and was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. The Broadway production of NYMF alum [title of show] earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. NYMF 2004 hit Altar Boyz played well over 1,500 performances Off-Broadway and spawned two National Tours. Yank!, which recently played off-Broadway, will be opening on Broadway next season.

"We are extremely excited with the unique variety of this year's Festival offerings," said NYMF Executive Director and Producer Isaac Robert Hurwitz. "It is essential for us to challenge ourselves to bring the best new musicals and events to our audiences and the New York theater community. With Special Letter from South Korea and My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding and Fingers and Toes from Canada, NYMF 2010 will truly be international."

This year's Festival will run September 27th through October 17th. Memberships are on sale now and members can start booking tickets on August 1st. Single tickets will go on sale beginning September 1st. To purchase a membership, please visit www.nymf.org/member.

NYMF 2010 FULL PRODUCTIONS

* denotes a selection of the Next Link Project, NYMF's writer service program to discover, nurture, and present the work of emerging musical theatre artists

*Above Hell's Kitchen

Book, Music, and Lyrics by Jonathan Spottiswoode

As his appetite for women threatens to consume him, a tortured rock musician wrestles with his inability to stay faithful during a series of gothic therapy sessions. Jonathan Spottiswoode and his cult band, Spottiswoode & His Enemies, bring a sexy expressionist twist to Don Giovanni that is at once comic, tragic and lyrical, and tinged with jazz, blues, rock, gospel, classical and punk. They say love is a game - so who can you blame for playing?

Bloodties

Book, Music, and Lyrics by Ned Massey

He was dubbed "the next Dylan, the next Springsteen" by the man who discovered Dylan and Springsteen. So why have you never heard of Ned Massey? Maybe you should blame God, The Fates, or Ned himself. After a troubled childhood and an unfulfilled shot at fame, a self-destructive musician questions faith and explores the power of forgiveness. With raw honesty and dark wit, Bloodties charts the meteoric trajectory of a life propelled by divine messages.

Fellowship!

Book by Kelly Holden-Bashar and Joel McCrary; Music by Allen Simpson; Lyrics and Additional Material by Brian D. Bradley, Lisa Fredrickson, Kelly Holden-Bashar, Joel McCrary, Edi Patterson, Steve Purnick, Cory Rouse, Allen Simpson, Ryan Smith, Peter Allen Vogt, and Matthew Stephen Young
Barefooted tap-dancing Hobbits! An ‘80s power ballad by the rightful heir of Gondor! A sequin-studded cabaret number by the Balrog, a dark creature of shadow and flame! And much more! This hilarious musical parody of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings, follows all of the events from the beloved epic adventure with one big difference: this time, it's funny.

Fingers and Toes

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