NYSP Presents Three New 30 Minute Musicals At The Playroom Theatre

NYSP Presents, in conjunction with the University of California, Irvine, will present Three New 30 Minute Musicals on Tuesday, April 23rd, for three performances only at the Playroom Theatre, This year's production features the new works of Wes Braver and Benji Goldsmith, Lily Dwoskin and Austin Nuckols, and Kate Chadwick and Josh Freilich.

Leslie Wickham serves as Music Director; Myrona DeLaney directs.

NYSP Presents commissions musical theatre writing teams to create new musicals for actors from the University of California, Irvine's  New York Satellite Program in Musical Theatre. The writers are sent video audition submissions mid-January and over the next two months write a musical work inspired by the actors and culminating in fully staged performances in New York City in April and at UC Irvine in May. This is the third annual presentation of NYSP Presents.

Performances are Tuesday, April 23rd, at 3:00pm, 5:30pm, and 7:30pm (cast talkback following the show) at The Playroom Theatre, 151 West 46th Street, 8th floor. Tickets: $10 (general admission) available online at: https://2019NYSPPresentsThreeNew30minutesMusicals.eventbrite.com

SISSY S. PITCHFORK

Music by Josh Freilich

Book and Lyrics by Kate Chadwick

A group of friends gather for their bi-monthly book club meeting in Chadwick and Freilich's new one-act musical, ?Sissy S. Pitchfork! ?The "Sissy S. Pitchfork We Love You and We Love Your Book" book club has invited Sissy herself to come and join them for their next meeting, and tonight is the night they hear from her! They might meet their idol and the author of the bestselling book, MISSIPPI DRAGONS! It's all nerves, doughnuts, and hope for our group because what if she says yes!?!?! And then again... what if she says no? OMG. With Eleni Kutay, Milan Magana, Harry Cho, Ernie Figueroa, Zoie Tannous, Kristen Powell, Alexis DeJoy, Anya Johnston, & Lizzie Menzies.

GEESE POLICE

Music by Benji Goldsmith

Book and Lyrics by Wes Braver

Geese Policeis an absurdist satire about how global warming is affecting Everpine, Ontario, Canada. The town's geese no longer fly south for the winter, and their overpopulation makes the town pretty...well, crappy. A few brave Canadians banded together to form the Geese Police and fight back. With Alexi Ishida, Veronica Renner, Meliza Gutierrez, Elena Harnack, Isaiah Tadros, McKay Mangum, Zoe Godfrey-Grinage, Aaron Miller, and Chad Watkins.

PLEASE SAY YOU LOVE ME TOO

Music by Austin Nuckols

Book and Lyrics by Lily Dwoskin

In Please Say You Love Me Too,Berrie, a new transfer to Small College of the Liberal Arts, makes a YouTube musical video to ask out the boy of her dreams. But her world is derailed when that same video falls into the hands of a desperate internet celebrity. With Justine Halas, Emily Abeles, Shahil Patel, Mariah Roberts, Kent Burns, Emily Frantz, Olivia Pech, and Patrick Maravilla.

More about the writers:

LILY DWOSKIN is a lyricist, librettist and playwright located in New York City. She graduated from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU. She is the book writer/lyricist for the musical Hyena in Petticoats, as well as the ten-minute musical, I Want to Eat Brains which was produced at Black Coffee Productions. Lily was also featured in William Finn's Ridiculously Talented..." cabaret at Barrington Stage Company. She worked on "The Count", an ongoing project for the Lilly Q Awards that aims to increase gender parity in American Theatre. Lily loves cute animals, superhero movies and board games.

Austin Nuckols is a NYC based composer, lyricist, and pianist hailing from Mechanicsville, Virginia. In his home state he received a BA in Music from University of Richmond, and afterwards completed his MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU. Selected projects include The Scarlet Savior (St. Luke's Theatre, prior UCI Workshop!), Hyena in Petticoats (NYU), Same Old Tune (University of Richmond), Inside Cloud Nine (Firehouse Theatre), After Ever After (TheatreWorks, Texas) and Allison Wonderland and What's the Deal with Scrooge? (Pantomonium Productions, NYC). Austin is an experienced music director, for shows from educational to regional to Off-Broadway level. austinnuckols.com

WES BRAVER is a composer, lyricist and playwright from Washington, D.C. He has written several musicals, including Medusa (with Rachel Dean) which was workshopped and produced by NYU Tisch's New Studio on Broadway. Also Hear No Evil in the Year 2090, (Music, Lyrics, and co-Book) and Galapago, (Music, Lyrics, and co-Book) which were produced in Colorado; a song cycle, Space Cases; and METADATA, an electro-pop concept album about Edward Snowden (available on Spotify/iTunes!), which premiered in D.C. He wrote the songs for the musical film Chatsworth, (HBO's New York Latino Film Festival), and scored the film "Youth," (SXSW 2019). His songs have been performed at the Kennedy Center, Barrington Stage and the Laurie Beechman Theater, and his music has been featured in a number of dance shows, and with the Broken Box Mime Company. Wes has a B.A. in Music from Colorado College and an M.F.A. from NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

Benji Goldsmith is a composer, songwriter, and musical director based in New York City. His music and songs have been performed at NAMT, 54 Below, Barrington Stage Company, New World Stages, and various other venues in New York and across the country. He is a recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the ASCAP Frederick Loewe Scholarship, and a winner of the New Musicals, Inc. New Voices Project. Most recently, he was selected for the 2018 Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriters Project. BA from Yale, MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch. For more info on ongoing projects, check out www.benjigoldsmith.com.

KATE CHADWICK grew up in ballet, taking classes and performing all through childhood. She has a BA (high-honors in musical theatre performance) from the University of California, Irvine, and a postgraduate degree in acting from The Oxford School of Drama. After school, she performed lead roles in regional theatre productions in the US and the UK (?Guys and Dolls, The Music Man, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Brigadoon, and Sweeney Todd?). In May 2015, she graduated from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where she was mentored by William Finn. That summer, Mr. Finn asked Graciela Daniele to help develop a show based on the songs she and collaborator Josh Freilich wrote, and since 2015, Graciela has directed and overseen several readings and workshops. Then, in 2017, Barrington Stage hosted a reading of the show the team created (?Butterflies),? directed by Graciela Daniele. Kate's lyrics, book writing, and opera-libretto writing has been performed in New York City (The Laurie Beechman Theatre, 54 Below, Sardi's, The York Theatre, National Asian Artists Project) and at regional companies around the U.S. (Hartford Opera, Fresh Squeezed Ounce of Opera). This is the team's third year working with UC Irvine's Satellite Program, and Kate and Josh are so glad to be back! Kate is a proud member of Actor's Equity and of the Dramatists Guild. www.katechadwick.com.

JOSH FREILICH is a New York City-based composer-lyricist who works as a pianist, accompanist, musical director, orchestrator, and arranger. He is a proud alumnus of the Manhattan School of Music, where he graduated in 2009 as a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Piano. He then received a Master of Fine Arts in musical theatre writing at the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he wrote his first musical The Star Child. Ever since then, he has co-headlined and performed his material at Lincoln Center, 54 Below, Barrington Stage Company, The Triad, and The Laurie Beechman Theatre. Josh has written music for the musicals Excuse Me! andMississippi Dragons (both with book and lyrics by Kate Chadwick), Color War, The Summer Camp-y Musical (written alongside Bryan Plofsky and Leigh Cesiro), and Carlotta(book and lyrics by Anita Reyes). Drawing from his experience at NYU, he has also studied and worked with Tony-winner William Finn, from writing the song "Music is My Friend" together, to working as dance music arranger for the 2015 Encores! Off-Center production of A New Brain. As a musical director, Josh has spent many summers teaching at the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in Hancock, New York, where he has musical directed at least 200 productions, including his favorites Sweeney Todd, In the Heights, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. And for the Hancock/French Woods Arts Alliance, he wrote and composed the charity anthem "Love is the Answer." As an arranger/orchestrator, he has worked with legends such as Brian Stokes Mitchell, Paul Gemignani, Steven Reineke, Ted Sperling, and Air Supply's Graham Russell. In the coming months, he looks forward to unveiling The Alien Logs of Super Jewels, based on the novel by BK Bradshaw, as well as Butterflies, a dance-oriented song cycle with book and lyrics by Kate Chadwick.

 

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