NewMusicalTheatre.com Launches Jeff Blumenkrantz Catalogue Today, 3/12

NewMusicalTheatre.com, the first website ever exclusively devoted to selling sheet music by musical theater writers, launches Tony-nominated Jeff Blumenkrantz's sheet music catalogue today. Over the course of the next severAl Weeks and leading up to an April launch concert, NewMusicalTheatre.com will be adding a new writer to the site every Friday.

The e-commerce site already sells sheet music written by Nick Blaemire (Glory Days), Adam Gwon (Ordinary Days), Joe Iconis (The Black Suits, The Plant that Ate the Dirty Socks, Things to Ruin), Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk (Henry & Mudge, Tales from the Bad Years, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown), Ryan Scott Oliver (Darling, Mrs. Sharp, Rated RSO), Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dogfight, Edges), Jeremy Schonfeld (Drift), Paul Gordon (Tony-nominee for Jane Eyre), and most recently Ryan Cunningham and Josh Salzman (I Love You Because).

Jeff Blumenkrantz began his career as an actor, performing on Broadway in Into the Woods (1987), Threepenny Opera (1989), Damn Yankees (1994), How to Succeed in Business... (1995), and A Class Act (2001), and on TV/film in Joseph ... Dreamcoat, Will and Grace, all three Law and Order series, and the Great Performances (PBS) telecast of Candide in Concert. It was Audra McDonald's recording of his song "I Won't Mind" (lyrics by Annie Kessler and Libby Saines) that jumpstarted his songwriting career. Since then, Jeff received a Best Original Score Tony® nomination for his songs in Urban Cowboy, and he contributed the song "I Think" to the acclaimed Off-Broadway production, The Audience. His one-act pieces, Woman with Pocketbook and Precious Little Jewel, have been performed at several regional theatres, and he has received song commissions from both Carnegie Hall and the Guggenheim's Works and Process program. Most recently, his songs have been recorded by Sutton Foster, Megan Mullally, Victoria Clark, Rebecca Luker, and Lauren Kennedy. Jeff is a recipient of the BMI Harrington Award and the Dramatists Guild Jonathan Larson Memorial Musical Theatre Fellowship. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a longtime member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. In 2005, he published a songbook of his music and produced The Jeff Blumenkrantz Songbook Podcast, which featured live performances of those songs. The podcast episodes can still be heard by visiting iTunes or www.jeffblumenkrantz.com. Jeff also produced and hosted The BMI Workshop Songbook Podcast, featuring never-before-available music by members and alumni of the acclaimed musical theatre writers' workshop. It, too, can be found on iTunes.

"In order for musical theatre to keep evolving, it is crucial that new voices be heard, developed, and nurtured. Some of the most memorable and critically acclaimed productions of the recent past have been created by "new" musical theatre writers: RENT, Avenue Q, Spring Awakening, [title of show], The Drowsy Chaperone, In the Heights...to name a few. I am glad to support a forum that showcases writers just a few steps away from their big break!" says Sutton Foster (Young Frankenstein, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Drowsy Chaperone).

The up-and-coming writers represented on NewMusicalTheatre.com have netted many of the prizes and laurels available to writers in the theater community. Among them, they've won four Jonathan Larson awards, two Ed Kleban awards, two Rodgers awards, one Fred Ebb award, as well as having had songs featured on television, and several Broadway, off-Broadway and regional productions.

The goal of NewMusicalTheatre.com is to create a direct connection between people who write music and people who want to perform and listen to it. It provides an affordable and legal one-stop shop for musical theater fans and performers to discover and share the work of self-published writers. Site features include custom songbooks, song ratings, and a search functionality that caters to singers browsing for new audition songs. It aspires to foster a dynamic community where
fans and actors can directly connect and impact writers while they're still struggling to make a living on their music.

NewMusicalTheatre.com will bring writers, actors, and fans together to share music in a safe, dynamic - and most importantly - legal way. "The site's an extension of what we all do in the real world -- support each other's work. To have a site that not only gets our music out to people who want to sing it, but helps those people discover other young writers, is amazing. It's bursting the doors of the new musical theater community open to the whole world," says site member Adam Gwon, composer of Ordinary Days.

The site was created by writers for writers as an alternative to traditional publishing. Most songs have mp3s or video samples. NewMusicalTheatre.com uses new technology to protect writers from
having their sheet music illegally downloaded by password protecting the downloaded file with the customer's credit card number. While protecting the writer, it also allows customers to have more control over their purchase. Rather than having to print their sheet music right away, they can keep the sheet music on their computer for continued access to the file and multiple printings.

When Jeff Marx (co-creator of Avenue Q) previewed the site, he said, "Whoever thought of making your credit card number the password to unlock the downloaded file was an absolute genius. That changes everything and serves everyone. This is going to be bigger than porn."

NewMusicalTheatre.com is dedicated to the distribution and promotion of a new generation of musical theater writers who self-publish their own digital sheet music. This is an e-commerce website designed by writers for writers. It allows fans to directly support the writers of tomorrow's big hits.

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski