National Alliance for Musical Theatre Announces $37,000 in Grants

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announces 11 awards granted from their National Fund for New Musicals, a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals. Now in its fifth year, the Fund will provide grants totaling $37,000 to 11 organizations across the country.

NAMT Executive Director Betsy King Militello stated, "We are honored to support our member theatres as they develop these exciting, innovative and provocative new musicals. With these grants, we have now awarded 56 grants totaling $234,000, all made possible by our generous funders including Stacey Mindich Productions, The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation and The ASCAP Foundation. These projects will join a growing list of important new musicals added to the canon with support from our National Fund for New Musicals."

National Fund grants of $10,000 to support full productions have been awarded to:
Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, MA) for Southern Comfort by Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis. This project previously received a Project Development Grant in support of its time at CAP21, a Writers ResidenCy Grant for its time at Playwrights Horizons and was presented in NAMT's 2012 Festival of New Musicals.

Transport Group (New York, NY) for The Memory Show by Sara Cooper and Zachary Redler, with support from Stacey Mindich Productions. The Memory Show was presented in NAMT's 2009 Festival of New Musicals.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Chicago, IL) for Summerland by Laura Eason, Jenny Giering & Sean Barry. Giering is an alumna from NAMT's 2005 Festival for Princess Caraboo.
Dallas Theater Center (Dallas, TX) for The Fortress of Solitude by Itamar Moses and Michael Friedman, with support from the ASCAP Foundation. Itamar Moses is an alumnus from NAMT's 2012 Festival for Nobody Loves You, which also received a Project Development Grant in 2011-2012 in support of its time at The Old Globe.

Human Race Theatre Company (Dayton, OH) for The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes by Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond with support from The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation. Kooman and Dimond are alumni from NAMT's 2011 Festival forDani Girl.
Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK) for Triangle by Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore with support from Stacey Mindich Productions. Triangle was presented in NAMT's 2012 Festival of New Musicals.

This is the fifth year of grants awarded from the National Fund of New Musicals, a fund created by NAMT to help support every stage of development for new musicals. The recipients were selected by a distinguished panel, moderated by Gigi Bolt, the former Director of Theater and Musical Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts. The panelists were Victoria Bussert, Director of Music Theatre at Baldwin Wallace University; Mark Hoebee, Producing Artistic Director at Paper Mill Playhouse; Jennifer Nelson, Director of Special Programming at Ford's Theatre; Matt Schicker, Producer and Consultant; Barbara Whitman, Producer; Talvin Wilks, Playwright, Director and Dramaturg and Michelle Yaroshko, Director of Professional Theatre Licensing at R&H Theatricals.

Additionally, the National Fund for New Musicals has awarded $500 to $1,000 in Writers ResidenCy Grants over the past year to the following organizations:
Goodspeed Musicals (East Haddam, CT) for Single Girls Guide by Tommy Newman and Gordon Greenberg. Newman and Greenberg are alumni from NAMT's 2009 Festival for Band Geeks! Newman is also an alumnus of NAMT's 2007 Festival for Tinyard Hill.

Millikin University (Decatur, IL) for Bastard Jones by Amy Engelhardt and Marc Acito.

New Musical Foundation (Vienna, VA) for Mad Scientists by Marc Acito, Christine McKinley & James Beaton.

TriArts Sharon Playhouse (Sharon, CT) for Strange Tails by Michael Ruby and Rob Rokicki.

Weston Playhouse (Weston, VT) for We Foxes by Ryan Scott Oliver.

The National Fund for New Musicals has supported the development of many musicals over the last 5 years, including Giant by Michael John LaChiusa and Sybille Pearson at Dallas Theater Center, which was performed at The Public Theater in New York this season; Ordinary Days by Adam Gwon which is now licensed through Rodgers & Hammerstein after an Off Broadway run at Roundabout Theatre Co., the upcoming production of Far From Heaven by Michael Korie, Scott Frankel and Richard Greenberg at Playwrights Horizons in New York; among many others.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, founded in 1985, is a national service organization dedicated exclusively to musical theatre. Our mission is to advance musical theatre by nurturing the creation, development, production and presentation of new musicals, and to provide a forum for musical theatre professionals to share resources and exchange information. Our 160 members, located throughout 32 states and abroad, are some of the leading producers of musical theatre in the world and include theatres, presenting organizations, higher education programs and individual producers. Among the over 200 musicals launched by NAMT's annual Festival of New Musicals are Thoroughly Modern Millie, Children of Eden, Honk!, The Drowsy Chaperone, Songs for a New World, I Love You Because, Striking 12, Vanities, Ordinary Days and many others, representing over 400 writers.

NAMT thanks the following foundations, government agencies and organizations for their ongoing support of our programs: The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation, A.R.T./New York, ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund, BMI Foundation, The Dramatists Guild Fund, Friars Foundation, Edward and Thea Lawton Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Foundation, Stacey Mindich Productions and The Shubert Foundation.