IndieWorks Theatre Company has announced the first season of its new podcast, Bite-Sized Broadway, a Mini-Musical Podcast. The first season features ten 50-minute episodes that showcase fully-produced, digitally-orchestrated "mini-musicals" followed by in-depth conversations with our 18 writers from around the globe. Writers will have the opportunity to share about their process, careers, and current and upcoming works. The first episode will premiere on Monday, October 5, with new episodes on the first and third Monday of each month.
"Every musical theatre writer I know has written short musicals for workshops, festivals, and conferences; many of these short shows are just incredible!" says Jonathon Lynch, the podcast's Creator and Music Director. "Wild, experimental, tuneful, hilarious, heartfelt. However, beyond workshop settings and maybe bootleg recordings on YouTube, there are few venues for these shows to be presented. I wanted a way to not only give these shows life but also to introduce their amazing writers to the world at large."
IndieWorks' goal is to use this podcasting platform to shine a light on these talented musical theatre writers. Through in-depth discussions, creators will have an opportunity to speak about their process, careers, and upcoming projects, giving them a voice that extends beyond theater walls and reaching new audiences.
"What started as a gathering of old or forgotten short musicals written for the BMI Workshop or the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program quickly gained attention from other writers who asked to write shows specifically for our program," says IndieWorks Artistic Director, Christopher Michaels. "From over 70 submissions internationally, we found talented writers, some established, some emerging, of different levels, backgrounds, nationalities and ethnicities whose voices are begging to be heard. Some of these musicals have never been heard by an audience before and will be premiered for the first time on our show." Michaels hopes that this program will also encourage other more well-known writers to keep creating short-form musical masterpieces, exercising their creativity, and inspiring new and young writers to do the same.
Andrew Fox, a New York City composer, lyricist, orchestrator, and producer, provides the audio engineering for this project in addition to lush orchestrations for each of the ten musicals featured this season. Fox, who notably orchestrates for StarKid productions in Los Angeles, has worked closely with Lynch and the season composers to create very specific musical soundscapes to further bring aural audiences into each episode's musical world.
Lynch, Michaels, and Fox each have shows featured in this inaugural season and are joined by writers from around the world including Timothy Huang (American Morning), Ed Levy (Picket Line), Neil Radisch (The Don Juan and the Non Don Juan), Jamil Ellis (Magical Negro Speaks), Eric Grunin (Our Woman, Frank Thompson), Gil Varod (Oedipus for Kids), Teresa Lotz (She Calls Me Firefly), Will Buck (Only Anne), Aaron Jensen (Schitt's Creek), Jared Corak (The Pout-Pout Fish), Joshua Cerdenia (The BMI Musical Theatre Workshop), Lawrence Dandridge (Aurway Repertory Theatre), Caitlyn Burt (Performing Miracles), Amir Shoenfeld (Winner of the 2020 Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Award), and Peter Saxe (Winner of the 2016 MAC/Burman Award).
Bite-Sized Broadway will be available to stream on all major podcast listening sites. Casting, episode air dates, and more details will be coming soon. For more information and to read author bios as well as a synopsis of each show, visit www.indieworkstheatre.com/bitesizedbroadway.
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