New York Theatre Barn Will Live Stream Excerpts From New Musicals By Rona Siddiqui, Heath Saunders, and Kim Saunders

New York Theatre Barn will host a free live stream of its New Works Series on Wednesday, May 27th, 2020 at 7PM EDT, featuring excerpts from the new musicals Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan and Newton's Cradle. The 40-minute presentation will also feature the creators of the two new musicals.

Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan has book, music and lyrics by Rona Siddiqui (music director of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop). In the new musical, "Halfghan" Medina Eskandani confronts what it means to identify as a person of color (her Middle Eastern side) when she has spent her whole life trying to be white (her Italian side). Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan is a zany, vaudevillian fantasia of bi-ethnic identity exploration with musical styles ranging from vaudeville, folk, rap, pop, country, to middle eastern groove. Siddiqui will be joined by director Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop, The Feath3r Theory) and dramaturg Jessica Kahkoska (Agent 355) who will present two songs from the show performed remotely by Sherz Aletaha (Disaster!), Angel Desai (Company), Jamen Nanthakumar (Hood) and Jonathan Raviv (The Band's Visit).

Newton's Cradle, written by the mother/son writing team of Heath Saunders (music and lyrics) and Kim Saunders (book and additional lyrics), is an experiential new musical about a young man on the Autism spectrum working through the loss of his mother. Newton's Cradle challenges our own expectations about grief and loss with a hypnotic mixed acoustic/electronic score to create a melodic picture of life seen through the filter of a very special brain. The writers will present two songs from the show performed remotely by Heath Saunders (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, Alice By Heart).

Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan was developed at the Catwalk Art Residency, had a reading produced by THML Theatre Company (directed by Marshall Pailet), and a reading presented at Playwrights Horizons (directed by Raja Feather Kelly). Newton's Cradle was featured in the 2016 New York Musical Festival where it won 6 festival awards including Best Musical, Best Lyrics, and Best Direction.

The 40-minute presentation will be available on New York Theatre Barn's YouTube channel.

The New Works Series is produced by Jen Sandler and Joe Barros. For more information, visit New York Theatre Barn's website: www.nytheatrebarn.org.

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