New All-Digital Theatre Licensing Company UPROAR THEATRICS Announced

Uproar Theatrics, a new digital theatrical licensing company, has been created to transform how regional, school, stock, and amateur groups license plays and musicals. Founded by Nathan Sheffield (Broadway entertainment lawyer), Kyle Holmes (playwright and theatre educator), Laura Hall (actor and director), and David Taylor Gomes (composer), Uproar Theatrics is expanding the theatrical pipeline to bring thrilling, fresh theatre to creators and audiences across America.

Uproar is looking to shake up a space that's ripe for reinvention. Traditional licensing was established when fans had to learn about shows through professional productions, reviews, word of mouth, or buying cast recordings from record stores. With the internet, however, there is now immediate and unrestricted access to content, allowing plays and musicals to build cult followings long before finding traction in commercial theatre. Uproar Theatrics' unique approach licenses both new and established works, giving opportunities to veteran and up-and-coming writers to find success in educational and regional markets.

Uproar Theatrics' licensing-only digital model allows creators the opportunity to update their work, so the words on the page are dictated by the creators' artistic vision. When Uproar receives a new draft from a writer, it's reflected on their website as the new licensed version right away. Writers can continue to update material, providing a uniquely collaborative opportunity for directors and teachers to participate in the development process.

Uproar Theatrics' all-digital model eliminates the need for warehouse space, costly shipping fees, and the hours spent erasing librettos to ensure deposits are returned. Each theatre will receive customized, watermarked PDFs for production members and all of the necessary files waiting in the cloud.

The current licensing environment can generally be broken down into two categories: shows that have found traditional success through a commercial production, and shows that cater to school groups. Uproar's catalogue will feature high quality pieces centering around the lives of characters in their teens through 30s, grappling relevant issues with nuance, complexity, and grace.

"Uproar Theatrics was founded with a commitment to supporting and diversifying the next generation of theatre through the stories told, the writers who tell them, and the communities who bring them to life," said the founders in a statement. "By connecting forward-thinking theatre makers around the world to new plays and musicals, world class and up-and-coming writers alike can have their work produced, while regional, student and amateur groups have the opportunity to explore challenging new work. It's a win-win for everybody. Uproar Theatrics is excited to disrupt the old licensing model and bring it forward to today."

CATALOGUE

With a book by Tony Award nominee Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre, Daddy Long Legs), and Tony and Olivier Award nominee and Obie award winner Michael Berresse ([Title of Show], Kiss Me, Kate), and music and lyrics by Gordon, Analog and Vinyl is a Faustian tale paying homage to the bygone era of LPs and rock & roll.

Being Earnest tells an updated version of the Oscar Wilde classic set in 1965 in the heart of Carnaby Street, with book and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Paul Gordon, and music by Gordon and three-time Emmy nominated and GENIE nominated composer Jay Gruska. Being Earnest premiered at TheatreWorks Palo Alto, and the production will be available to be streamed on StreamingMusicals.com this spring.

2021 Yale Drama Series Prize recipient Rachel Lynett presents two pieces - Abortion Road Trip and He Did It. The 2020 Kilroy List title He Did It focuses on a story of sexual abuse in in the arts industry, and Abortion Road Trip follows two young women and their driver on a road trip from San Antonio to New Mexico to get an abortion. Lynett's plays have been featured at Theatre Lab, Magic Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre, and as part of the Amplified Series at Indiana University.

The Unfortunates is a darkly comic musical set against the backdrop of war and plague, about the pains of loss, the search for salvation and our ability to love in times of adversity, all steeped in a red-hot score of gospel, hip-hop and blues. The show was created by Jon Beavers, Casey Hurt, Ian Merrigan, and Ramiz Monsef, with additional material by Pulitzer Prize finalist Kristoffer Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity). Originally developed and produced by The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and later by American Conservatory Theater.

From West Hyler (Cirque du Soleil Paramour, Big Apple Circus) and Shelley Butler's (A Doll's House Part Two) Drama-League award nominated theatre company Artistic Stamp comes Electra's Diary, an epistolary theatre experience. The play-by-mail production takes audiences on interactive adventures via handwritten correspondence with the cast, and culminates with a live performance featuring the letters written by audience and cast members.

Island Song is a poignant, off-beat dramedy with a kinetic pop-rock score (boasting 9 MAC-nominated songs) with words by Sam Carner, music by Derek Gregor, story by Carner, Gregor, and Marlo Hunter. After premiering at the Adirondack Theatre Festival in 2016, Island Song released a cast album featuring Jeremy Jordan, Jackie Burns, Kimiko Glenn, Lilli Cooper, and Troy Iwata. Since 2018, the show has been performed in London, Tokyo, Singapore, Bologna, Paris, and at dozens of colleges, high schools, and theatre companies around the US and Canada.

The Hippest Wizard of Oz is being created specifically for Uproar's catalogue by the award winning team of J Kyle Manzay (concept, book, music & lyrics), Ronvé O'Daniel (music & lyrics), Jevares C. Myrick (music & orchestrations). The story follows Dorothy as she is transported from a record store in the Bronx to the magical, musical land of Oz, where she must gain an appreciation for the cultural history of hip-hop and click her golden Adidas three times to make it home. The writing team's musical, Once Upon a Rhyme (formerly illa!), is one of four musicals featured in the new competition TV series Opening Night America, where they will compete for a live stage premiere under the direction and guidance of celebrity mentors such as Tony and Emmy award winner Kirstin Chenoweth

Ranked, A Musical with book by Kyle Holmes and music and lyrics by David Taylor Gomes, is set in a dystopian world where your grades and test scores govern everything from where you sit to what your future holds. The musical is the subject of an upcoming HBO documentary, tentatively titled RANKED. Despite the pandemic, over the last year the musical has been licensed by over thirty schools across the country, as well as in China and England.

From playwright Tara Moses, Sections explores the stark difference between professed value systems and actually living them, told through the lens of a racially ambiguous young woman and her white, liberal well-intentioned friends. Moses is a director, multi award-winning playwright, co-Artistic Director in Residence at Red Eagle Soaring, Producing Artistic Director of telatúlsa, co-Founder of Groundwater Arts, and a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.

Peter, Who? (formerly known as The Spidey Project) is the unauthorized musical parody of everyone's favorite web-slinging spider-based superhero. With music by Emmy Award-winning composer Doug Katsaros (arr. Rocky Horror, Footloose, Altar Boyz) and Adam Podd (The Boston Pops, The National Symphony Orchestra, Idina Menzel; Darlene Love) and book and lyrics by Justin Moran (NYMF's POPE! An Epic Musical) and Jon Roufaeal (Nightfall on Miranga Island). Written in response to all of the time and money it took to mount a specific arachnid-centered Broadway flop, the musical parody was hailed as "The Spider-Man musical fans deserve!" by MTV.com.

Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers by Michael Lluberes is a visceral new adaptation that works from J.M. Barrie's original texts to craft a darker, scarier, and more dimensional version of Peter Pan for a modern audience. This fantastical exploration of the fears of growing up and the power of the human imagination found critical acclaim at the Kennedy Center Page To Stage Festival Reading, No Rules Theatre Company Production, and The Blank Theatre Production.

Inside a very normal-looking suburban home is David, a young man who lives in the bathroom and never comes out, eating only what flat food his mother can fit under the door. The Boy In The Bathroom, a musical by Michael Lluberes and Joe Maloney takes a delicate and riveting look at a young man's experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder as he struggles to let a newcomer in. This Richard Rogers Award finalist has met glowing reviews at Adirondack Theatre Festival, Chance Theatre, and Bloomington Playwrights Project.

Parker and the City in the Sea is a heartfelt teen drama about grief, family, and about two siblings' quest for redemption, penned by award-winning, internationally-produced playwright Ian August. August's work has been developed with the Powerhouse Theatre Season, Ashland New Plays Festival, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, among others.

Premiering last fall as a part of UC Davis' Catalyst: A Theatre Think Tank, Become the Flowers, written by new playwright Talia Friedenberg, is a one act play about an unexpected pair that find themselves waiting for the end of the world together, exploring grief, joy, mortality and connection.

BIOS

Nathan Sheffield, a lawyer by trade and a passionate arts advocate by nature, has spent over two decades working in nearly every facet of the entertainment business. As the co-founder of the law firm of Herzog + Sheffield, P.C., Nathan's legal practice focuses on the development, financing and production of live theatre, book, film, television, and music endeavors. Clients include producers, talent, creative team members and other affiliated parties involved with hit television series, Broadway productions, and award-winning independent films.

Kyle Holmes is an educator, director and playwright. He spent almost a decade as the Director of Theatre Arts at Granite Bay High School in Northern California where his students went on to create art in Southern California, New York City, and across the United States. He currently works with school districts receiving Title I funding to create equitable opportunities in California schools. As a playwright he wrote the book for Ranked, A Musical. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and a proud alumni of artEquity's first National Board Training cohort.

Laura Hall is an actor and director who made her Broadway debut in Wonderland, toured with Diane Paulus' revival of Pippin, and has worked regionally across the country. Back in New York, Laura frequently collaborated with composers, lyricists and playwrights in developing new work. TV credits include "The Blacklist" and "Shades of Blue." She's a graduate of CCM and a proud member of Actors' Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA.

David Taylor Gomes is a Composer, Musical Director, Actor, and Educator, best known for writing the music and lyrics for Ranked, A Musical and Boxed Up: The Musical. His voice students have performed on Broadway, national tours, The Disney Channel, and many regional theatres across the US. He is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

www.UproarTheatrics.com

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