The BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop has announced its Fall
Smoker, a semi-annual showcase for new songs from Workshop writers. The event will be held in the Media Room of BMI's New York office at
320 West 57th Street on Thursday, December 8 at 5:30PM and is open to
members of the entertainment industry as well as Workshop members.
The Smoker, now entering its ninth season, is modeled
after informal social gatherings at Cambridge University where the
Workshop's two-time Tony Award-winning writer Maury Yeston (Grand Hotel, Nine) performed
his songs during his undergraduate days. Previous smoker participants
include Best Musical Tony Award-winners Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx
(Avenue Q), Nancy Ford and Gretchen Cryer (I'm Getting My Act
Together…...), Eric Rockwell and Joann Bogart (The Musical of Musicals,
The Musical) and Amanda Green and Tom Kitt (the upcoming High Fidelity). Eleven new musicals and twenty BMI Workshop writers will be
represented in the pre-holiday entertainment. Performer Sharon Werner
will play "Ilse" to composer-lyricist David Arthur's "Rick" in the song
""Paris,"" an homage to the film Casablanca from Saratoga Trunk Songs. Saratoga Trunk Songs was performed at the Stages Festival in Chicago
and will have two staged readings at the York Theatre on December 5 and
6. BMI Harrington Award composer-lyricist Andy Monroe is collaborating
with BMI Librettist Michael Zam on The Diva of Dade County, a new show
about a retired singer who becomes a pop sensation when she teams with
a South Florida songwriter. Writers Tom Gualtieri and David Sisco are
collaborating on a musical version of Henry Jame's' Washington Square
(the basis for the play and film The Heiress). Lyricist Steve
Routman and composer Joy Son are adapting the film The Fisher King by
Richard LaGravanese and are represented with the song "Some People are
Meant to be Alone." Composer Aron Accurso and lyricist Jill Abramovitz
are adapting Leah Napolin's The Dogs of Pripyat, which takes place in
a town three kilometres from the Chernobyl disaster. The survivors
include a cat, Ninotchka, and a dog named Boychik as well as Old Tronko
and his wife Elizaveta, who sings ""Everything I Need."" Abramovitz is
currently appearing in TheatreWorks/USA's Junie B. Jones, written by
Workshop alumnae Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich. When Derby Died is an
original musical by Jim McNicholas and Matt Vinson about a
tech-addicted New Yorker whose computer dies and how it affects him
over the course of a weekend. Songwriters Jeff Hughes and Scott Ethier
are collaborating with novelist Richard Vetere on The Third Miracle
(basis for the film of the same name). The new musical examines a priest,
beginning to doubt his faith, who is sent to investigate a "miracle" in
the borough of Queens. Brian Lowermilk and Kait Kerrigan will perform
"Bev Makes It Happen" from their original musical The Unauthorized
Autobiography Of Samantha Brown. Calvin Berger's very free
adaptation of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac recently won the 2005 BMI
Foundation Jerry Bock Award for Workshop Songwriter Barry Wyner.
Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning composer Jerry Bock (Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me) will personally select
the winning musical from members of the BMI Workshop. The second year Workshsop is represented by "Perfect" from the musical
Still Life at the Golden Age by Jim Colleran as well as "The Royal
Taster's Song" from second Year writers Phoebe Kreutz and Marc
Schubring's musical Iznogoud. First Year writers Webb Wilcoxen and
Dan Furman's will perform "Hello, Des Moines." The song is an example
of a "sad hello/happy goodbye" song assignment, one of the song
exercises devised for the workshop by Lehman Engel over forty years
ago. The evening's finale is ""Words are not Enough,"" Steve Routman
and Joy Son's tribute to the memory of their fellow classmate, Bob
McDowell. The event is co-produced by 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 Captain's Courageous, produced by Manhattan Theatre
Club. Evans, whose musicals have been seen from Alaska to London, is a
Jerry Bock Award-winning lyricist. He has been named on Best of The
Year Lists in and The Palm Beach Post, The Norwich Bulletin and TheatreWeek. The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, honored with the
2005 Drama League Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre, was founded
in 1961 by the late Lehman Engel, dean of American musical theatre, to
create a setting where new writers could learn their craft.
Now marking its 65th year in business, BMI is an American performing
rights organization that represents more than 300,000 songwriters,
composers and publishers in all genres of music. With a repertoire of
more than 6.5 million musical works from around the world, the
non-profit-making corporation collects license fees from businesses
that use music, which it then distributes as royalties to the musical
creators and copyright owners it represents.For reservations, e-mail Ssantana@bmi.com
or call 212 830-8360.