Tim Federle, Bess Wohl, Marc Bruni, Leigh Silverman and More Slated for NYMF Panels

The New York Musical Festival (NYMF), previously known as The New York Musical Theatre Festival, has announced that they have partnered with The ASCAP Foundation, The Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), and SDC Foundation to curate three panel conversations with industry professionals, aimed at providing more insight into the musical development process.

The panels will take place over various dates at The Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET® Project (229 W 42nd Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues) and The Pearl Theatre (555 W. 42nd Street).

MADE IN NY Talks: Writing Across Media - Stage, Screen & Song, sponsored by MOME, will take place on Sunday, July 24 from 1:00 - 2:30 pm at The Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET Project (229 W 42nd Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues). Moderated by Tim Federle (Tuck Everlasting), panelists Radha Blank ("Empire"), Susan Kim (The Joy Luck Club), and Bess Wohl (Small Mouth Sounds) will engage in a dialogue that explores how New York-based writers are able to develop and juggle lucrative careers across media platforms: as playwrights, screenwriters, librettists, novelists, songwriters of show tunes and popular music, and beyond. Admission is free, but reservations are recommended.

From the Director's Perspective: Collaborating on the Creation of a New Musical is presented in partnership with SDC Foundation will take place on Tuesday, July 26from 1:00 - 2:30 pm at The Pearl Theatre (555 W. 42nd Street). Panelists Marc Bruni (Beautiful - The Carole King Musical), Ed Iskandar (The Mysteries), and Leigh Silverman (Violet) will be talking to Moderator Sarna Lapine (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) about the value of a director's creative contributions during the development of a new musical, long before it's ready for the stage. Tickets are $10.

Moderators Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner (First Date) will host For the Love of Originality: How to Invent New Stories in Musical Theater, sponsored by The ASCAP Foundation, on Sunday, August 7 from 1:00 - 2:30 pm at The Pearl Theatre (555 W. 42ndStreet). Panelists will include Elliah Heifetz & Abigail Carney (Dust Can't Kill Me) and David Hein & Irene Sankoff (Come From Away) discussing what it takes to turn their own inspiring ideas into successful shows at a time when truly original musicals are few and far between. Admission is free, but reservations are recommended.

Tickets and reservations for all panels are available now at www.nymf.org. Individual tickets for 2016 NYMF are now on sale in addition to NYMF Passes. NYMF Passes offer discounted tickets, early ticket booking, and priority seating. Visit www.nymf.org/tickets for more information on both individual tickets and NYMF Passes.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS/MODERATORS:

Tim Federle (Moderator) is an award-winning writer whose works include the novels The Great American Whatever and Better Nate Than Ever, the global bestseller Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist, and the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Tuck Everlasting, for which Tim co-wrote the script with Claudia Shear. Tim has penned columns for the New York Times, been profiled in Atlantic Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times, and CNN, and had his book appear as a clue on Jeopardy. A native of San Francisco who grew up in Pittsburgh, Tim now divides his time between New York City and the internet.

Radha Blank (Panelist) is a playwright, performer and writer for tv and film. She is a 2013 Sundance UCROSS Playwright, a 2011 Helen Merrill Award recipient, a 2011 NEA New Play Development Award recipient (for SEED), a NYFA Fellow, a Nickelodeon Writing Fellow, a member of The Public Theater's inaugural Emerging Writers Group and Winner of Best Screenplay at The 2013 BlackStar Film Festival for "FOH". When not writing for the stage or screen, Radha performs as emcee RadhaMUSprime, whose brand of Ghost-Face-Killah-meets-Moms-Mabley Hip Hop Comedy has sold out shows from New York to Norway. Her forthcoming mixtape is called The 40-Year-Old Version. Her song & video for "Hoteps Hoteppin,'broke the internet' and was featured on various outlets, including Very Smart Bros, AfroPunk.com and Okayplayer.com. Radha has written for Baz Lurhman's Netflix series, The Get Down and Lee Daniels' FOX's network series hit, Empire. She currently works as Writer/Co-Producer for Spike Lee's new Netflix series, She's Gotta Have It.

Susan Kim (Panelist) is a TV writer, playwright, and author. Children's TV credits include: Arthur, Cyberchase, Wonder Pets!, Octonauts, Astroblast, Reading Rainbow, Handy Manny, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Oswald the Octopus, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Speed Racer, and many others. She has been nominated for both Emmy and Writers Guild award several times.?In documentaries, Susan co-produced Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and later aired on AMC. Icebound opened the Alaskan Film Festival and aired on the BBC. She won a WGAE award for Paving the Way, which aired on PBS??In fiction, she wrote the YA trilogy Wasteland with husband, Laurence Klavan. They also wrote two graphic novels, City of Spies and Brain Camp. Plays include the stage adaptation of The Joy Luck Club, the children's musical, Merlin's Apprentice, and numerous one-acts. Her plays have been published and produced around the country and internationally.

Bess Wohl (Panelist). Plays include SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS (Top ten of 2015: NY Times, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, The Advocate and others) BARCELONA, AMERICAN HERO, TOUCHED, IN, CATS TALK BACK and the original musical PRETTY FILTHY, in collaboration with Michael Friedman and The Civilians (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Musical). Her work has been produced or developed at Second Stage, Ars Nova, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Geffen Playhouse, Hartford Stage, People's Light and Theatre Company, The Contemporary American Theater Festival, Vineyard Arts Project, The Pioneer Theatre, The Pittsburgh Public Theater, The Northlight Theater, TheaterWorks, Ojai Playwright's Conference, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, PlayPenn and the New York International Fringe Festival (Award for Best Overall Production). In 2015, Bess won the Sam Norkin Drama Desk Award for "establishing herself as an important voice in New York Theater." Other awards/honors include a Macdowell fellowship, the Athena Award for her screenplay, VIRGINIA, and inclusion on Hollywood's Black List for best screenplays. She is an associate artist with The Civilians and an alumna of Ars Nova's Play Group. She holds new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, Hartford Stage and Lincoln Center. Bess has also developed film/TV projects for HBO, ABC, USA, Disney, Paramount and others. She is a graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Drama.

Sarna Lapine (Moderator). Recent credits include: Tribes by Nina Raine (Segal Centre, Montreal), Post-Op (Joe's Pub & The Wild Project), Other Desert Cities (Theatre Aspen), Hope and Gravity(Creede Repertory Theatre), Sunday in the Park With George (Short North Stage), Waiting for Lefty (Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute), and The Year of Magical Thinking (Intiman Theatre). Concerts and Cabaret: The Boston Pops, 92nd Street Y, 54Below, Cafe Carlyle, and The Oak Room. Associate Director (North American Tours): The National Theatre's War Horse and Lincoln Center Theater's South Pacific. Associate & Assistant Director (Broadway): Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, South Pacific, Sondheim on Sondheim, Awake and Sing! and The Light in the Piazza. Upcoming: Monsoon Wedding (Berkeley Rep). MFA: Columbia University.

Marc Bruni (Panelist) is currently represented on Broadway, London, and US Tour with Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Bruni's other directing credits include revivals of Paint Your Wagon, Pipe Dream and Fanny for NY City Center Encores!, The Explorers Club (Manhattan Theater Club), Old Jews Telling Jokes (Westside Theatre and Royal George in Chicago- Jeff Award nom for Direction), Ordinary Days (Roundabout Underground), The Sound of Music (Chicago Lyric Opera), Presto Change-o (Barrington), Irving Berlin's White Christmas (Paper Mill Playhouse), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Paper Mill Playhouse and Philadelphia Theatre Company), and and 7 shows for the St. Louis MUNY including My Fair Lady, The Music Man and The Sound of Music (Two Kevin Kline Nominations). He won the NYMF Award for Best Direction for his production of Such Good Friends.

Leigh Silverman (Panelist), a two-time Obie winner, directed the Encores! and Broadway productions of Jeanine Tesori's Violet and earned a Tony Award nomination. Other Broadway credits include David Henry Hwang's Chinglish and Lisa Kron's Well as well as Andrew Lippa's Wild Party for Encores. She has directed over 30 Off-Broadway world premieres. Upcoming projects include a new Neil LaBute play starring Judith Light at MCC; a revival of Sweet Charity starring Sutton Foster at The New Group; a new play by Madeleine George at Two River Theater; and a new musical by Ethan Lipton at The Public Theater.

ED ISKANDAR (Panelist) recently directed an immersive The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare Theatre Company, D.C.), and world premieres of Charles Francis Chan, Jr.'s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery by Lloyd Suh (NAATCO, NYT Critics' Pick) and Sojourners by Mfoniso Udofia (Playwrights' Realm). Ed received a Drama Desk Special Award for the "visionary directorial excellence" of The Mysteries (The Flea, NYT Critics' Pick) and The Golden Dragon (PlayCo, TONY Critics' Pick), with additional nominations for Amy Freed's Restoration Comedy and Sean Graney's These Seven Sicknesses (The Flea, NYT Critics' Picks). MFA (Carnegie Mellon), BA(Stanford), and NYTW Usual Suspect. www.ediskandar.com

Alan Zachary AND Michael Weiner (Moderators) wrote music and lyrics for Broadway's First Date, which ran at the Longacre Theatre in New York starring Zachary Levi (Tangled, TV's "Chuck") after a sold-out run at Seattle's 5th Avenue/ACT Theatres. The romantic comedy musical can now be seen in productions across the U.S. and around the world. The team also wrote the score for a Broadway musical adaptation of the film Secondhand Lions (book by Rupert Holmes/produced by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures) which premiered at the 5th Avenue Theatre. Recently, the duo wrote original songs for the hottest musical act in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Celestina Warbeck & the Banshees, based on a character by J.K. Rowling. Additionally, they have developed TV pilots for ABC, FOX and Disney Channel and created shows and songs for Disney Animation, Disney Cruise Line, and Disney Parks around the globe. Upcoming stage musicals include: 17 Again (Directed by Adam Shankman/Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures), an adaptation of the ballroom dance film, Take the Lead (Book: Jonathan Tolins & Rob Cary), and an original musical comedy with Jerry Zucker, co-creator of Airplane! and The Naked Gun. Zachary and Weiner are recipients of The ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award.

ELLIAH HEIFETZ (Panelist) is a composer, lyricist, and pop songwriter from Philadelphia whose works have appeared both on major label releases and New York stages. His first musical, DUST CAN'T KILL ME, won the Fringe NYC Overall Excellence Award for Best Music & Lyrics. His pop writing is published by The Brain Music. A recent graduate of Yale, Elliah has studied with Jeanine Tesori and Michael Korie. Member of the 2015 Yale Whiffenpoofs.

ABIGAIL CARNEY (Panelist) is a writer from a small town in Ohio. Her work has been produced at the Young Playwrights Festival, The Secret Theatre, The New School for Drama, The Yale Playwrights Festival, The New York International Fringe Festival, The Kraine Theatre, and in Sitka, Alaska. As a spoken word poet, she has performed at the Rustbelt Midwest Regional Poetry Slam, the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI), and Brave New Voices (BNV), and opened for The Strivers Row. Her poetry has been published in The Feminist Utopia Project. DUST CAN'T KILL ME is her first musical.

Irene Sankoff AND David Hein (Panelists) are a Canadian husband-and-wife writing team and the recipients of the Bryden "Ones-to-Watch" Award. Their first musical, MY MOTHER'S LESBIAN JEWISH WICCAN WEDDING (based on David's mother's true story) was the hit of the 2009 Toronto Fringe Festival, and was picked up by Mirvish Productions, extended five times, and has now earned rave reviews and multiple "Best Musical" awards, at the New York Musical Theatre Festival and across North America, with Sankoff and Hein performing in most productions. Their second musical, COME FROM AWAY just enjoyed a record-breaking, critically acclaimed world premiere co-production at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and Seattle Repertory in Seattle with direction by Chris Ashley (Memphis, Xanadu, Rocky Horror). COME FROM AWAY tells the true story of when 38 planes from around the world were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11. Developed at The Canadian Music Theatre Project at Sheridan College, and at Goodspeed Musicals, it has won "Best Musical" awards in Seattle and San Diego and was included on "The Best Theatre of 2015" list by the LA Times. It is currently running at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC. This fall, it will be presented in Gander, Newfoundland and Toronto, followed by a transfer to Broadway in Spring, 2017. Their current show, MITZVAH, tells the story of a family whose son has autism as he approaches his Bar Mitzvah, set against a backdrop of stories from autism's history and the neurodiversity movement. It was recently developed at the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, TheatreWorks SV and the Jewish Plays Project with director, Marc Bruni (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical). Created with support from the Ontario Arts Council, MITZVAH was commissioned and is now being developed by Yonge St. Theatricals.

The previously announced lineup of productions, readings, concerts and events for the 2016NYMF includes BREAKING THE MOON; ILLA!, THE GOLD; SINGLE; CAMP ROLLING HILLS; LUDO'S BROKEN BRIDE; QUICK AND FUNNY MUSICALS; ARTEMIS IN THE PARKING LOT; CRUDE; Molly Murphy & NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON ON OUR LAST DAY ON EARTH; DUST CAN'T KILL ME; FOREST BOY; NEWTON'S CRADLE; NICKEL MINES; NORMATIVITY; LISA AND LEONARDO; THE FIRST CHURCH OF MARY, THE REPENTANT PROSTITUTE'S FIFTH ANNUAL BENEFIT CONCERT, REVIVAL, AND POT LUCK DINNER; THE LAST WORD; TINK!; A SCYTHE OF TIME; CHILDREN OF SALT; ICON; EH DAH? - QUESTIONS FOR MY FATHER; PLAY LIKE A WINNER; COOKIES; REMISSION; TOUCHÉ; BREAD AND ROSES; ULTIMATE MAN!; THE BABY PROJECT; A LASTING IMPRESSION; OUTLIERS; STILL READY: Rob Rokicki IN CONCERT; FREEDOM RIDERS; MIDNIGHT AT THE NEVER GET;ONE CHILD BORN: THE MUSIC OF Laura Nyro; and more. For a full list of productions, readings, concerts and events visit NYMF.org. For a full list of productions, events, and concerts, visit NYMF.org.

This year, the Festival will take place July 11 through August 7 at The Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET® Project (229 W 42nd Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues); The Pearl Theatre (555 West 42nd Street); 416 West 42nd Street, Playwrights Horizons Rehearsal Studios; June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th Street, NY, NY 10018); 42West NY (514 West 42 St); The Laurie Beechman Theatre (407 West 42nd Street) and Theater 511 (511 W 54th Street).

Dan Markley serves as NYMF Executive Director & Producer. Curation of the 2016 Festival is led by Rachel Sussman, who joins NYMF this year as Director of Programming & Artist Services. A Grand Jury panel of industry experts helped to determine the musical lineup of the Festival.

This year's Grand Jury included Tony Award-winning actor Michael Cerveris, OBIE and Drama Desk Award-winning actress Donna Lynne Champlin, Two River Theater Literary ManagerAnika Chapin, Creative Director, Fox Stage Productions Isaac Robert Hurwitz, Tony Award-winning producer Jane Dubin, Director of Theater Arts Program at The National Black TheaterJonathan McCrory, Tony Award and Drama Desk Award-nominated actor and writer Tony Sheldon, playwright, lyricist, and actress Gretchen Cryer, Drama Desk Award-winning actorSantino Fontana, Tony Award Nominated, Drama Desk and OCC Award Winning actressMontego Glover, Broadway director West Hyler, Tony Award-nominated director Leigh Silverman, and Laurence Olivier Award-winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo.

New York Musical Festival (NYMF) nurtures the creation, production, and public presentation of stylistically, thematically, and culturally diverse new musicals to ensure the future vitality of musical theater.

Now in its thirteenth year, the Festival is premier musical theater event in the world. The preeminent site for launching new musicals and discovering new talent, the Festival provides an affordable platform for artists to mount professional productions that reach their peers, industry leaders, and musical theater fans. More than 90 Festival shows have gone on to productions on and Off-Broadway, in regional theaters in all 50 states, and in more than 20 countries worldwide. Festival alumni have received a wide array of awards including the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2013, NYMF received a special Drama Desk Award in recognition of its work "creating and nurturing new musical theater, ensuring the future of this essential art form."

New York Musical Festival is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos