Come in from the cold and check out what's hot at the 16th Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals. The much-anticipated three-day festival of brand-new works returns to the Goodspeed campus after having been canceled in 2021 due to Covid-19. This year's Festival is unique in that all of the new musicals to be showcased are written by women. The Festival kicks off on Friday, March 18 at The Goodspeed with a staged reading of A House Without Windows. This fascinating new tuner features a book by Anna Ziegler and music and lyrics by Anna K. Jacobs. Saturday, March 19 will be highlighted by a staged reading of the darkly comic and powerful new musical HoT, which has music by Lynne Shankel and words by Sara Cooper. The final day of the festival features The Gunfighter Meets His Match, a new musical filled with humor and heart with book, music and lyrics by Abby Payne. Additional Festival events, including seminars, symposium and exclusive cabarets, will round out this exciting weekend.
Single tickets are $25 for each staged reading, $15 each for students. Single show tickets and Festival packages are available through the Goodspeed Box Office 860.873.8668. Single Show tickets can also be purchased online at
www.goodspeed.org. This year's Festival is sponsored in part by lead sponsors RisCassi & Davis, P.C. and the
Burry Fredrik Foundation with support from the Adolph and Ruth Schnurmacher Foundation, The Jessica Waldman Thompson Endowment in Support of The Festival of New Musicals and Webster Private Bank.
Goodspeed's ever-popular Festival GOLD Package will offer patrons a weekend full of special events. The $155 package includes admission to all three staged readings; three Festival seminar sessions; the Festival Symposium; a Saturday evening pre-show dinner at either the Gelston House or La Vita; and a Meet the Writers Q&A, which will complete the weekend's festivities. Also included in the Festival GOLD Package is admittance to either the Friday Night or Saturday Night Cabarets - informal gatherings showcasing new songs by new and established artists. A special SILVER Package which includes the three staged readings, three Festival seminar sessions, the Festival Symposium and the Meet the Writers Q&A is also available for only $100.
"We are proud to welcome this amazing group of female-identifying writers to the Goodspeed campus and to share their important and entertaining stories with our audiences at this earliest stage of development. They, along with the other prominent artists and industry experts who will participate in the symposium, seminars and cabarets will make this one of the most significant and memorable events in Festival history," said
Donna Lynn Hilton, Goodspeed's Artistic Director. "The Festival of New Musical is the cornerstone of Goodspeed's new works development program and we invite all who enjoy musical theatre to join us for a weekend that will enlighten, entertain and educate all who attend," she added.
"I can't think of a more a delightful way to kick off spring and Goodspeed's 2022 season than with the Festival of New Musicals," said David B. Byrd, Goodspeed's Managing Director. "We are so excited to celebrate the future of musical theatre with our local community and with industry professionals from around the country," he added.
The Festival of New Musicals is produced by Goodspeed Musicals'
Max Showalter for Education in Musical Theatre. Created in 2002, Goodspeed's Showalter Center inspires and nurtures musical theatre artists and students by providing a unique and comprehensive range of training and educational programs to serve both the national and local academic communities. The Goodspeed Festival program offers new and established artists the rare opportunity to thoroughly work on their projects with the help of Goodspeed's renowned resources and artistic environment. At the same time, the Festival affords junior and senior students from prominent conservatory programs real-world experience in new musical development and performing new musicals.
Preparations for the Festival begin on March 7th when the three teams of writers and composers arrive on the Goodspeed campus and dedicate their time to further writing and composing their musicals in development. They are joined by musical theater students from The Hartt School, who take part in rehearsals and continued development of the material. The intensive retreat culminates with Goodspeed's Festival of New Musicals, which showcases staged readings of the new musicals developed during the two-week long program, one of the Showalter Center's major endeavors.
In order to keep all of the artists, staff and audiences safe from Covid-19, Goodspeed has developed a strong safety policy that requires all who attend the Festival to show proof of vaccination and wear masks at all events. Complete details can be found at
www.goodspeed.org/safety.
Lodging and dining information for Festival attendees as well as up-to-date information on the weekend's events can be found at
www.goodspeed.org
Information about the three staged readings and the schedule of special events for Festival Package holders includes:
Friday, March 18
A House Without Windows
7:30 p.m., The Goodspeed
Book by Anna Ziegler
Music and Lyrics by Anna Jacobs
Barbara Newhall Follett was the child prodigy author of a celebrated novel about a young girl who runs away from her family and vanishes into nature. Twelve years after its publication, on December 7, 1939, Barbara walked out of her apartment with $30 and a light overcoat, and was never seen or heard from again. She was twenty-five years old. A House Without Windows is a meditation on the mystery of Barbara's disappearance, the ways in which art imitates life and vice-versa, and what can happen when the life that seemed promised never materializes, especially to those for whom the line between reality and fantasy is already gossamer-thin.
Festival Cabaret:
Timothy Huang
10:00 p.m., Gelston House
Saturday, March 19
Seminars
10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., Gelston House / La Vita
Seminar titles to be announced.
*Symposium : Topic and speakers to be announced
4:00 p.m., The Goodspeed
*This event is free and open to the public.
Festival Dinner
5:30 p.m., Gelston House - OR - La Vita
Enjoy a three course meal with fellow festival goers.
HoT
7:30 p.m., The Goodspeed
Music by
Lynne Shankel
Words by
Sara Cooper
HoT is a darkly comic, through-composed feminist adaptation of Helen of Troy featuring an all-women+ cast. It exposes and examines the commodification women face throughout our lifetimes as Helen is first sexualized, then held to unrealistic beauty and gender-based standards, and finally vilified and discarded - until she decides to stand up and take back her power.
Festival Cabaret: Artist to be announced
10:00 p.m., Gelston House
Sunday, January 19
The Gunfighter Meets His Match
1:00 p.m., The Goodspeed
Book, Music, & Lyrics by Abby Payne
A Wild West boom town, famous for the legend of a brilliant Gunfighter, is stirred up by the arrival of a young ranch hand on a mission to understand the truth behind the Gunfighter stories. As mysterious past and present meld and the Gunfighter returns to protect his long lost love, he and the townsfolk must face their ghosts in this new musical filled with humor and heart.
Meet the Writers Q&A
3:30 p.m., The Goodspeed
Gain insight into the inspirations and processes of the writers during this lively festival wrap-up discussion.
