CO-FOUNDERS and SHE REACHED FOR HEAVEN to Headline New York Theatre Barn New Work Series Livestream

New York Theatre Barn will host a free live stream of its New Works Series on Wednesday, April 28th, 2021 at 7PM EST, featuring excerpts from the new musicals Co-Founders and She Reached For Heaven. The live 1-hour presentation will also feature a conversation with the writers and creative team.

Co-Founders, with book and lyrics by Adesha Adefela, Beau Lewis and Ryan Nicole Austin and music by Jodie Ellis, Josh "Budo" Karpm, Cava Menzies and Brian Watters, is the story of the two most unlikely partners in the history of Silicon Valley. Esata Thompson, a black female coder from Oakland, and Conway Delouche, a small town college dropout, take on the most competitive startup accelerator in the world - where the privileged make a killing while the people across the bridge grind to survive. Featuring performances by Austin Dean Ashford, Ryan Nicole Austin, Jeb Brown (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Scotland, PA), Gerard Canonico (Be More Chill) and Amber Iman (Hamilton, Shuffle Along).

She Reached For Heaven is the new musical from Oliver Houser (music and lyrics) and Hunter Bird (book and direction). On the outside, high school senior Jes Holt is doing everything she's supposed to. On the inside, she's never felt more alone and longs for something she can't name. Set against the backdrop of the greatest drug crisis in our country's history, She Reached for Heaven is an original coming-of-age story about the devastations of addiction, and one woman's journey to choose life rather than escape it. Featuring performances by Julia Harriman (Hamilton) and Oliver Houser.

Co-Founders began as a weekly freestyle rap session in Oakland and San Francisco among friends who saw meaning in getting vulnerable and celebrating the grit of Bay Area artists and entrepreneurs. The show has been developed with San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater and was featured in the 2020 National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals. She Reached For Heaven, previously titled Almost Heaven, has been developed with the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat and the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center.

The 1-hour presentation will be available on New York Theatre Barn's YouTube channel and Broadway on Demand, and is hosted and produced by Associate Artistic Director Jen Sandler and Artistic Director Joe Barros. Now in its 14th season, the New Works Series has received support in part by the Innovation & Exploration Fund, a program of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. For more information, visit New York Theatre Barn's website: www.nytheatrebarn.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.