Guest Blog: Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals Blog #6 - THESE DAYS ARE GONE

Welcome back friends! This will be a short and sweet blog this go-round, as...

The festival is upon us. The festival? The festival! The kings- er, I mean, The Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals kicks off tonight. (If you got that reference on the first go round, 50 points to Gryffindor)

We start off with Five Points tonight, Sweetwater tomorrow night and then we close out the festival on Sunday afternoon with our baby, Passing Through. If you're a musical theatre lover, I can't imagine a more exciting pilgrimage to make - a full weekend of brand new works, cabarets and masterclasses from truly incredible artists.

Last night we all convened upon the Gelston House Restaurant to eat, drink and celebrate the "end" of the process here. I put the word "end" in quotes, because this is just the beginning for the shows themselves, but as far as any new additions/changes to material, we've decided to lock into a version so that these students can shine with confidence onstage.

The support system among the creative teams up here was on full display last night, as we're all in the exact same place. Starting tonight, these shows...these "children" that we've birthed take their first steps in front of a paying audience. We raised and nurtured them as best we could, and gave them all the love we have inside of us, but now comes the true test. Will an audience see what we all saw? Do they laugh when we laughed? Do their eyes well with emotion like ours did? Have we created a satisfying musical that tells a powerful and engaging story?

And the stories couldn't be more diverse with the common ground being the pursuit of the American Dream.

On Friday you sit back and live in a civil era story about the teaming of a black performer and an Irish immigrant. On Saturday, you take to the skies and live in the world of the first female fighter pilots. And on Sunday, we take you across America as a young man walks on foot in search of answers as to how we're all connected.

I'm tremendously proud to be among these creative teams and to be part of a festival that is celebrating diversity in storytelling during this second Golden Age of Musical Theatre. I cannot wait to sit back tonight and take the first show in.

And that's it folks, I told you it'd be short and sweet. I'll be back for a wrap up early next and if you see me at the theatre this weekend, please come up and say "Hi."

People who celebrate new works of theatre are most definitely my kind of people!

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