|
|
| |
 Chicago Cabaret Professionals Presents A Holiday Cabaret 2009: MERRY MEASURES At Davenport's Piano Bar 12/7, 12/8
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - November 02, 2009
Chicago Cabaret Professionals will again spread joy and music in their 11th annual holiday concert with TWO SHOWS. Over two nights, audiences will enjoy over 40 talented singers. All proceeds will benefit Teen Living Programs (Dec 7) and Save the Children (Dec 8). (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Next Broadway Sensation
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - October 03, 2008
It's been an amazing thing to watch the growth of Broadway Idol (yes folks, don't be fooled by the name change due to copyright infringement fears!) over the past three years. Though it began as a kitschy idea concocted after a few gin and tonics with my good friend Lily Hung (now NYMF's Development Director) our little contest has actually grown into an exciting showcase for uber-talented and undiscovered musical theater performers. (Did you hear last year's winner, George Psomas, made his Broadway debut this year in SOUTH PACIFIC?) (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Giant Killer Shark
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - October 02, 2008
If you're reading this, we've made it into America and have probably performed this play about twice. We're unbelievably famous and have all bought lofts in Williamsburg, and we don't have time for you anymore. Thanks for coming. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: The Fancy Boys Follies
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - October 01, 2008
I was one of the creators of Naked Boys Singing, and it was amazing to me that my dirty mind and sparkling wit (I say with a wink) could combine to help create what became pretty much a phenomenon…people love it. I caught a lot of flak for writing "that kind" of show…a boyfriend split with me over it, my mother thinks I'm a pervert…but the truth is, that's how I think…sex, and all the accoutrements that come with it, is funny to me, but that's not all I'm about…I'm incurably romantic and I think smart is sexy (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Lines
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 30, 2008
"M tryng my hardest 2 sell my soul. But M running low." says my phone. I hit send and quietly await the response. It's 3 A.M. and par for me at this hour, the only thing breaks my stride is the giant foot that's in my mouth as I text. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: BLACKfootNotes
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 29, 2008
"I've written a play about four African American women who changed the face of history," Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj told me bluntly one day during rehearsal for Bubbling Brown Sugar, a concert revival of the show that put Amas on the map all those moons ago, that he was directing for us a couple years back. "Who are they?" I asked. "You never heard of them, I promise", he replied. "Wanna bet?" I said. "How much?" he challenged. "I'll do a reading of it IF I lose", was my offer. "VERY COOL!" he says … "Here they are: Eliza Anna Grier, Geraldine Pittman Woods, Jane Cooke Wright, and Evelyn Boyd Granville." (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: That Other Woman's Child
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 29, 2008
I'm seven years old and a brownie-scout. My mom is the scout leader, and her assistant is Mamie Goforth. The Goforths had recently moved from their farm in Kentucky to Chattanooga. The farm wasn't paying the bills so their father had to take a job on the railroad. My mom, Mamie Goforth, myself, and the rest of the Brownie troupe are on our way to that farm in Kentucky for a camping trip. We arrive late at night and enter through the farm gate into a pasture of sleeping cows. One of the cows has to be moved so that our car can go through. In that moment was born the setting for That Other Woman's Child. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: She Can't Believe She Said That!
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 27, 2008
It hadn't really occurred to me to write a musical until I was working on this sitcom pitch for Paramount called "George and the Guys." "George and the Guys" was based on my friend Nicholle's dad – George – who was going through a rough patch with his wife, had been booted out of the house, and the only home he could find was as the 4th roommate of three 20-somethings on his pickup basketball team. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: The Hourglass and The Poisoned Pen
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 26, 2008
The Hourglass and The Poisoned Pen played for four weeks in Chicago last July. During the run it received great reviews in The Reader, The Sun-Times and The Tribune. However, of all these reviews, one blogger caught our attention for his quirky and entertaining take on our production. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Idaho!
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 24, 2008
Years ago I was traveling across the country in a U-Haul truck. The New Orleans World's Fair had gone bankrupt, stiffing my theatre company in the process, and I was moving to LA to try my hand at writing television. My U-Haul could only go 55, had no air-conditioning and only an AM radio. I reached a point about half way across Texas where I couldn't even pick up the feeble signals from the Mexican stations I had been listening to. So I started singing to amuse myself, creeping along through the desert, windows open and inhibitions cast to the Texas wind. Maybe the locale was the inspiration, but without my even realizing it, I had begun writing a musical called Idaho. By the time I made the California border I had a verse and chorus each of about half a dozen songs. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: A Puppet Music Thing
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 22, 2008
Most of us have a picture that pops into our head when we hear the word "puppet" and it usually looks like something from Sesame Street. That's the kind of puppetry I started with. People also usually think that puppetry is for kids. I do that too. Then I went to The O'Neill Puppetry Conference in Connecticut. As the Artistic Director, Pam Arciero, says...I found my tribe. I wasn't familiar with the beauty and artistry of theater puppetry and I was blown away by it. Puppets are cool. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Cyclone and the Pig-Faced Lady
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 22, 2008
I'm a geek. I was obsessed with comic books as a kid, and I still have hundreds of them in a milk crate under my desk. They're not in plastic bags or mint condition, because I read them until they were ragged. I'm sure I became a playwright because I was so used to reading speech bubbles. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Prospect Theater Company 10th Anniversary Concert
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 20, 2008
1998 saw the founding of two ambitious new organizations: Prospect Theater Company and Google. Over the past decade both companies have grown tremendously.
(more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: The Jerusalem Syndrome
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 19, 2008
The sturdy young Canadian thought he was Samson, and went on to prove it by smashing through a wall to escape from Kfar Shaul, the Government psychiatric hospital on Jerusalem's western reaches.
(more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Fairytale, The Musical
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 18, 2008
Over ten years ago, I started writing Fairy Tale as a high school kid in Indiana. At that point, it seemed like the issue I was dealing with, albeit through a bawdy comedy, was too taboo to talk about, especially in a place like Indiana. Growing up gay in the Midwest is a strange experience. The Fairyland I was writing about was close to my reality. Everywhere I turned, the idea of having feelings for a member of the same sex was greeted with condemnation. Forget the idea of same-sex marriage; just having thoughts seemed like a crime. Fairyland was a much darker place at this point. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Play It Cool
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 17, 2008
Play It Cool started with a series of long, gabby lunches with my friend Larry Dean Harris (co-writer of the book). Larry was on the board of the Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles. They had initiated another little show I had written some songs for called "Naked Boys Singing!"--and were in the market for another one. Both Larry and I loved old film noir and jazz—so we came up with the idea of putting them together. To be honest with you, I was all caught up in visions of slick streets, tough talking guys and good lighting so I basically left Larry alone-- (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Chocolate Soup
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 16, 2008
So, I'm teaching at Center Stage, minding my own business, when who should appear but Matt Corriel, composer extraordinaire. He's young, he's hip, he's fun and he's brilliant. We hit it off immediately. Last year, we teamed-up to create Intervention A Teen Musical Comedy that got into NYMF and won the Moss Hart Award (the New England TONY). (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Sophia's Fall
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 16, 2008
The cast of Sophia's Fall is scared of our show - they don't tell me these things of course, but sitting at the edge of rehearsals, I can see it. They're a brave, talented, athletic, charismatic bunch, but they have good reason to fear Sophia's Fall. It's hard. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Ubu: A 'Patamusical
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 15, 2008
Ubu: A 'Patamusical began 14 years ago as Brantley was finishing his junior year in high school. Yep, high school. Monty Holamon asked him to spend the summer learning to walk on stilts. The reason: the one-act play that Monty was planning to direct that fall was based on three French plays by Alfred Jarry, and three of the characters, the Paljenttents, needed to be about 10 feet tall. Huh? (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: COLLEGE, The Musical
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 13, 2008
On New Years Day, 2005, we were sitting on the floor of our dorm room, brainstorming ideas for new musicals we wanted to write. We were eating cold pizza out of the box and laughing at the empty cereal bowls, text books, and laundry strewn about the room; we were listening to roommates outwit each other and joke about both the trivialities and the very important aspects of their lives; we were trying to drown out the cell phone calls and television news playing in the background…. For some time, we'd been looking at stories to adapt or historical events to retell, but finally we just looked at each other and the room we were sitting in, and we said "You know what? I think this is it." (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: On The Road to Ruin
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 12, 2008
Every time I see that I have written the principle elements for R2R (as we call it around campus) I feel a teensy bit guilty because even though I did, in fact, write all three. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Castronauts
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 10, 2008
Speaking truth to power- it's always so thrilling, isn't it? And EXACTLY what we've all been wanting to do for the last eight years. So what better fantasy than a drag queen taking on a dictator? And you just know that Fierce Diva is bound to win. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF: Bedbugs!!
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 08, 2008
From Upper East Side high-rises to Union Square subway benches, from a woman found dead in her infested Queens apartment to the famous Fox 5 newsroom incident, bedbugs have been getting around. The current problem has spawned new extermination businesses, bedbug specialists and websites where fellow sufferers congregate to share horror stories and resources. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF 2008: Max & the Truffle Pig
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 07, 2008
Deep in the heartland, southern Indiana. I am working on a new play at the New Harmony project. It is fantastic here, great for writing. Not so good for calling. To use your cell phone you have to walk five streets down and two streets over, where, in the middle of the road, you might be able to get Verizon. So when I finally pick up my messages there are quite a few, including three from a very determined lady who would like to speak to me about a project. (more...)
|
30 Days of NYMF 2008: The Hatpin by James Miller
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 06, 2008
It's five days until I fly to New York for the first time in my life. As a keen lover of theatre- this is how it felt as a kid to see pictures of Disneyland (which, incidentally, I have never been to either!) (more...)
|
Welcome to '30 Days of NYMF'
by 30 Days of NYMF 2008 - September 05, 2008
Welcome to "30 Days of NYMF"
(more...)
|
|
| |
|
11/7:
Intern Needed
11/2:
Bway Grosses & Quote
10/15:
The Great White Yay!
STAGE TUBE: The GLEE Cast Sings National Anthem at the World Series Game
Photo Coverage: Bette Midler's HULAWEEN 2009
Photo Coverage: Paper Mill's ON THE TOWN in Rehearsal
Photo Coverage: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC Meets the Press
Photo Flash: THE ADDAMS FAMILY Revealed
Photo Coverage: GLEE's CD Signing at Borders NYC
STAGE TUBE: RAGTIME's New Viral Video
BWW TV: Lin-Manuel Sings in DC!
SPIDER-MAN Update: Carney is Parker, Cohl Lead Producer
Bdwy Beat Sneak Peek - FINIAN'S