Signature Theatre Names Julián Mesri As Judith Champion Musical Theater LaunchPad Resident

Signature Theatre has named playwright, composer, and musician Julián Mesri as the recipient of the organization's Judith Champion Musical Theater LaunchPad Residency. Continuing the LaunchPad program for early-career playwrights from historically underrepresented communities inaugurated last year, this year's residency specifically advances the voice, body of work, and professional development of an emerging musical theater writer.

On May 13 at 5pm, Signature's SigSpace, which sustains the Pershing Square Signature Center lobby as a public work and gathering space that transforms into a performance venue, will celebrate LaunchPad and both Mesri and inaugural resident Melis Aker. The free event will take place Monday, May 13 at 5pm, offering attendees an opportunity to get to know the artists and introducing them to their bodies of work. The evening will include a sneak peak at Aker's Fish, her commissioned coming-of-age play about two teenagers who look for answers to a profound loss by catfishing ISIS. Signature will showcase Fish in a developmental presentation in September 2024. The SigSpace event will also feature a selection of songs written by Mesri offering a window into his bold, genre-crossing compositional style and thematic focuses. (Those who wish to attend can RSVP here).

Julián Mesri, who was raised in New York after immigrating from Argentina, writes that he has “always lived between two worlds and two languages.” He describes: “The drive to tell a compelling story that transcends borders requires something able to unite them. For me that crucial element is in the songs. There's something about being able to make something land tunefully that unlocks musical theater's greatest ability, and that's music as communion–both communication and connection. When my book crosses borders, the music is meant to bridge them; when my lyrics change languages, the songs are meant to translate them. With music and song, complex issues that bring in whole countries, decades, and cultures, can suddenly be put into dialogue and made accessible.”

In lyrical, inventive, and incisive musicals, Mesri has reflected on legacies of colonization and nationalism as well as resistance, revolution, and the lives of people seldom documented in our histories. He aims, as he puts it, to “reach into both language and voice to put past and present in counterpoint with each other.” Among the boundary-breaking works he's developing is Telo, incidentally written with Pershing Square Signature Center's Ford Studio in mind (as a Columbia playwriting MFA student, his thesis was supposed to be presented there before the pandemic hit). The musical is set in three separate eras in the same Buenos Aires sex hotel, bridging intimate stories unfolding behind closed doors with history unfolding on the global stage.

The 2024 residency was in part inspired by Signature's work with Dave Malloy—the organization's first-ever musical theater writer in residence, whose second world premiere production at Signature, Three Houses, is currently in previews (and opening May 20). Their relationship with Malloy has revealed how a playwright-centric company can support musical theater. Motivated by this collaboration, Signature sought to work with another writer, this time an emerging voice, with a groundbreaking vision for musical storytelling. In order to sustain work with the same resident through the program's three years, Signature looked for a talented generative artist who pens the book, lyrics, and music for their work, and who had not had a major off-Broadway production at the time of application. They selected Mesri from the many applicants.

The residency takes the name of the late Judith Champion, a devoted supporter of New York theater, and of emerging playwrights and new work in particular. It will provide Mesri with holistic artistic support over the course of three years, which includes: one $15,000 commission, one full production and one workshop production (both in the 99-seat Ford Studio), healthcare benefits, developmental readings (toward production), a theatergoing stipend, a writing retreat outside New York City, access to private workspace at Signature, and guided mentorship by a Signature resident playwright.

Mel Litoff, Judith Champion's partner, says, "I know Judi would have been as thrilled as I am to learn that Julián Mesri has just been selected as the first Judith Champion LaunchPad Resident at Signature Theatre. I look forward to watching the development of a great new Mesri Musical."

Signature Theatre Artistic Director Paige Evans says, “Julián is a very talented writer. Like Dave Malloy, his singular vision is present in his composition,book, and lyrics. Julián's boundary-breaking writing can sustain musical-loving audiences while also bringing new audiences to the form. He has already done a lot of  work developing that vision. Now, he needs productions. We're excited, with LaunchPad, to offer Julián a platform to see his work staged, and to give him an opportunity to learn and grow.”

The second LaunchPad residency begins while current resident Melis Aker continues her work with Signature—part of a plan to have overlapping LaunchPad Residents, enabling writers to turn to their peers within the program for creative support and inspiration. The LaunchPad Program is generously supported by Pablo Salame and the Estate of Judith Champion.

LaunchPad is Signature's newest residency program, building on its long-term commitment to playwrights' bodies of work. Other programs include the Premiere Residency (formerly Residency 5), which supports the development and production of several new plays by each resident playwright, and the Spotlight Residency (formerly Residency 1), which offers a deep dive into an established writer's body of work through productions of three or more plays, both new and reimagined. Playwrights in all residencies, including LaunchPad, become Legacy Playwrights, with the potential to have their work staged under the banner of Signature's Legacy Productions—celebrating previous Signature Writers-in-Residence by continuing to produce their plays.

About Julián Mesri

Julián Mesri is a New York-based Argentinean-American playwright and composer who makes multilingual plays and musicals in the US and around the world. He is the co-adaptor and composer/lyricist for the Mobile Unit bilingual production of Comedy of Errors at The Public Theater. He received an EST/Sloan Commission for his musical Favaloro: A Heart in Pieces. Recent work includes Telo (Live and In Color Finalist, O'Neill NMTC Finalist), Bartolomé de las Casas Ruins My Pool (O'Neill NPC Finalist), and Immersion (Columbia/Roundabout Finalist, BAPF Semi-Finalist). Other work includes music directing/arranging Songs About Trains with Radical Evolution, music directing and co-orchestrating Brian Quijada's Somewhere Over the Border (Syracuse Stage, Geva Theater). He is a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center and has been a member of The Public Theater Emerging Writer's Group, a Dramatist Guild Fellow, an Emerging Artist of Color Fellow and Usual Suspect at NYTW, and a Van Lier fellow at Repertorio Español. His adaptation of Fuenteovejuna received the HOLA Outstanding production award. He has also translated dramatic works for the Lark US/Mexico Exchange and PEN World Voices. He received his MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University.

About Melis Aker

Melis Aker is a writer, actor and musician from Turkey, based between London and New York. She was named a Woman to Watch by the Broadway Women's Fund and received the Sundance Interdisciplinary Program grant & NY Community Trust/Van Lier Fellowship. She's developing a series with Skybound Entertainment, is Signature Theatre's LaunchPad Resident, and Theatre503's 503Five writer. She has developed work with the Atlantic Theatre Company, NYTW, Playing on Air (Scraps and Things starring Carol Kane, featured on NYT), Homebound Project (Fractio Panis starring Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari-Cox, dir. Tatiana Pandiani), Ars Nova (Play Group), PlayCo, DGF, Roundabout, New Group, O'Neill, 24 Hour Plays, Finborough, the Park, and has been named on the Kilroys' List. She co-created the bilingual musical AZUL (Jonathan Larson grant, NYC Women's Fund) alongside Jacinta Clusellas and Tatiana Pandiani. She worked on the development of a screenplay with Revelations Entertainment, and is in post-production for her film “Baba in Graceland,” dir. Marc Atkinson Borrull. In 2024, Melis will develop the musical play Hundred Feet Tall with Benjamin Scheuer and Katy Rudd at the Old Vic, her commissioned plays Fish at Signature and Murmurs at Theatre503, and will be completing her debut novel. Representation: CAA.

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.