Theater Resources Unlimited Presents How To Write A Musical That Works Workshop #2: Conflict & Obstacles, 2/25

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents the second workshop in the series How to Wrote a Musical That Works, Conflict & Obstacles, onSunday, February 25, 2018 from 10am - 6pm at NOLA Rehearsal Studio, 244 W 54th St., 5th floor, Studio 5. Submission fee is $10 for members, $20 for non-members. If accepted, it will be applied to a participation fee of $100 ($80 for TRU members). Those not selected will be invited and encouraged to attend the workshop as observers. The price is $55 ($35 for TRU members). Go to https://truonline.org/events/feedback-workshop-2-2018, click the link to download the application, fill it out, and email toTRUPlaySubmissions@gmail.com to sign up. If accepted, the workshop includes 2 seats for the entire day workshop as well as your presentation slot. Space is limited. Any additional attendees from the musical team (including music director, additional collaborators and cast members) who wish to observe the entire workshop must reserve in advance and will be charged $25 per person.

This workshop is dedicated to fostering a conversation about musical theater structure not only for writers but also for producers, directors and everyone involved in the creation and production of new works.

Our professional panel of commercial producers, directors and writers will include:

• Ken Cerniglia, dramaturg and literary manager of Disney Theatrical;
• Cheryl Davis, Kleban and Larsen Award winning librettist and lyricist (Barnstormer), Audelco Award winning playwright (Maid's Door);
• Nancy Golladay, literary consultant (NY Shakespeare Festival, O'Neill Conference, more), moderator of the BMI Librettists' Workshop;
• Skip Kennon, composer/lyricist (Herringbone, Don Juan DeMarco, Time and Again), former artistic coordinator of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and teacher for two decades;
• Bob Ost, executive director of Theater Resources Unlimited, and TRU Literary Manager Cate Cammarata will facilitate.

Writers (or producers!) are invited to submit no more than 25 pages of a show in a development. Submit selections of the show in which conflict and obstacles arise - the plot complications - plus MP3s of the songs within only those pages. Also send a concise synopsis of the opening in which the world of your show is introduced, and the want of characters and how it prepares the audience for the conflict in the section presented.

In the workshop we will focus on three main aspects:

• 1) Songs that express differing points of view, or conflict;
• 2) "Turnaround Songs" in which a character changes his course of action;
• 3) The climactic moment (sometimes the first act finale) that drives us forward into the resolution (note: "resolution" will be in workshop #3).

Discuss will focus on "I am" songs and "I feel" songs, and the function of each, with special attention paid to the way they move the action. In addition, the workshop will continually explore the delicate balance between script and song.

PANELISTS

Ken Cerniglia is dramaturg and literary manager for Disney Theatrical Group, where since 2003 he has developed over fifty shows for professional, amateur, and school productions, including Freaky Friday, Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Peter and the Starcatcher, Newsies, High School Musical, Tarzan, and The Little Mermaid. Recent freelance projects include Hadestown (New York Theatre Workshop, Edmonton's Citadel), Bud, Not Buddy (Kennedy Center), Passion Trilogy (LMU/Fisher Ensemble), and Bridges (Berkeley Playhouse). Ken holds a Ph.D. in theater history and criticism from the University of Washington and is president of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).

Cheryl Davis was a recipient of the Ed Kleban Award for her work as a librettist, and her musical Barnstormer, written with award-winning composer Douglas J. Cohen, received a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award, under the auspices of the Lark Play Development Center. Her play Maid's Door was produced at the Billie Holiday Theatre received seven Audelco Awards; and was also presented at the 2015 National Black Theatre Festival. Her play Carefully Taught was performed at the Astoria Performing Arts Center. Her new musical, Bridges, was produced by the Berkeley Playhouse in February 2016 and received great reviews, including from the San Francisco Examiner. Cheryl's play about the desegregation of the nation's school system, The Color of Justice, which was commissioned by Theatreworks/USA, received excellent reviews in the New York Times and Daily News, and tours regularly. Her play Winnie the Pooh KIDS was commissioned and is currently licensed by the Disney Theatrical Group; Cover Girls, which is an adaptation of the Bishop T. D. Jakes novel, was produced and toured by ClearChannel Entertainment. She has written commissions for the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project, the Red Mountain Theatre Company (Mandela and The MLK Project), and the Birmingham Children's Theatre (Tuxedo Junction, about Alabama Jazz musician Erskine Hawkins). Bridgeswas written on commission from the Berkeley Playhouse. Her play Swimming Uptown has received developmental readings at the Lark Play Development Center, the Abingdon Theatre, and the Classical Theater of Harlem. Her work has been read and performed internationally, including at the Cleveland Play House, the Kennedy Center, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She received a Writers' Guild Award for her work on the daytime dramatic serial "As the World Turns" and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her work on that show as well. Her musical Barnstormer, which is about Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman flyer, has received a developmental production at the Red Mountain Theatre in Birmingham Alabama, and readings at the York Theater Company, Stamford Center for the Arts, and as part of Hartford Stage's "Brand:NEW" Festival; it has also received a BareBones presentation at the Lark Play Development Center and has been presented as part of the National Alliance for Musical Theater's Annual Festival. Her play Corner Office was a finalist in The Actors Theatre of Louisville's National Ten-Minute Play Contest. Cheryl is a musical theater librettist and lyricist, and is an alumna of the Advanced Workshop of the BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, and the co-founder and Vice President of Theater Resources unlimited.

Nancy Golladay has served as a literary consultant with the New York Shakespeare Festival, Paul Sills, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Ellis Rabb, Warner Brothers Films, Punch Productions, The Nederlander Organization, Tenterfield Productions, the La Jolla Playhouse, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and Davenport Theatrical. Nancy was actively involved in the founding of the U.K.'s Book, Music, and Lyrics (BML) Workshop, an evolving group focused on the development of musical theatre writers and choreographers. She was an invited speaker at Mercury Musical Developments writers' conference in London, and appeared on the original Dramatists Guild "Art of the Synopsis" panel in New York. Nancy has worked for many years on the Drama League, Drama Desk, and Tony-honored BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop as a member of the faculty and Advisory Committee. As Moderator of the Librettists Workshop, she has recently created a popular program of in-house table readings of its members' new projects.

Skip Kennon was the overall Artistic Coordinator of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and the teacher of the first year there for two decades. He wrote the music for the one-man musical Herringbone (Playwrights Horizons - starring David Rounds, Hartford Stage - starring Joel Grey, Edinburgh Festival, Philadelphia's Prince Music Theater, Chicago's St. Nicholas Theater, 2007 season opener at Williamstown Theater Festival - starring B.D. Wong), the music for Here's Our Girl (workshopped at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater), and the music and lyrics for the musical version of The Last Starfighter (Storm Theatre, Village Theatre Festival of New Musicals - summer 2006, New York Musical Theatre Festival readings - fall 2006), Blanco (Goodspeed Opera House at Chester, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, National Music Theater Network), Feathertop (WPA Theater, Pennsylvania Stage Co.), and Time and Again (Manhattan Theatre Club, San Diego's Old Globe Theater, Eugene O'Neill Center National Music Theater Conference). Kennon also wrote the music and lyrics for the one-act musical Plaisir d'Amour (book by Terrence McNally), which was produced at New York's Triangle Theater and seen in workshop at Circle Rep, as well as the music for the one-act musical Afternoon Tea (book & lyrics by Eduardo Machado), which was performed at Theater Row Theaters in 2005 by Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. He was a classical music critic at the Hollywood Reporter for five years.

Cate Cammarata is a New York-based producer, director and dramaturg. She most recently presented a workshop production of My Life Is a Musical at The Duke on 42nd Street, and directed a musical reading of Your Name On My Lips at Emerging Artists Theater; she also co-directed a multimedia devised performance of Antigone with her students at SUNY Stony Brook. She dramaturged the world premiere performance of Harold I Hate You at the HERE Arts Center for CakeFace Performance Company last December, and is currently the US Representative for Hamilton Dramaturgy. Cate's other credits include Famous: The Musical for the TRU Musical Reading Series 2011 (producer),Robeson a new play about the legendary Paul Robeson for Stony Brook Mainstage (director), Body Language for The Active Theater (dramaturg), among others. Cate is a graduate of the Commercial Theater Institute's 16 week Producing course, the CTI-O'Neill Summer Workshop, a member of TRU's Producer Mentorship Development Program and has worked with the HERE Arts Center as Associate Dramaturg and with the Broadway producers Jana Robbins and R. Erin Craig as Producing Associate. She holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from SUNY Stony Brook and a BFA in Acting/Directing from Syracuse University, and is currently the Literary Manager for TRU and an Adjunct Professor for SUNY Stony Brook Theatre Arts.

The three-part series, How to Write a Musical That Works, concludes with the final FEEDBACK WORKSHOP #3: RECKONING AND RESOLUTION inJuly 2018.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a twenty-five year old 501c3 nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-Producing Artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, goods and productions; presents the TRU VOICES Annual New Play Reading Series and Annual New Musicals Reading Series, two new works series in which TRU underwrites developmental readings to nurture new shows as well as new producers for theater; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program whose mentors are among the most prominent producers and general managers in New York Theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop the business skills they need. TRU serves writers through a Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab; programs for actors include the Annual Combined Audition, Resource Nights and "Speed Dating" as well as actor workshops.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by public funds awarded through the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature the Montage Foundation.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org or call 212 714-7628.