Theatre Now to Welcome Three New Musical Writing Teams

Theatre Now New York has added three writing teams to their Musical Writers Lab, selected from over 100 submissions: AriDy Nox & Jacinth Greywoode, Thalia Ranjbar & Kat Cartusciello, and Britt Bonney. The new members will join 30 continuing artists in the NYC Local and International chapters of the group for a total of 20 writing teams.

"We received submissions from around the world and were energized by the incredibly high level of talent. We're thrilled to welcome these artists; they bring fresh perspectives and exciting possibilities to our community " says Thomas Morrissey, Theatre Now's Artistic Director. "We look forward to supporting the continuing development of their work."

AriDy Nox and Jacinth Greywoode were recently featured in the Playbill Songwriter Series as well as the NAMT Festival of New Works Songwriters Showcase. Their current project, Black Girl in Paris, a new musical about the life of young Sally Hemings, is a 2024 Rhinebeck Winner, a 2023 O'Neill NMTC Finalist, and was performed in concert at Joe's Pub. Thalia Ranjbar and Kat Cartusciello are currently developing the Iranian-themed musical Nima and the Jen, which appeared on Ramin Karimloo's podcast The Hang and was selected for the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. Britt Bonney is a Helen Hayes Award winner for her musical direction of Todd Almond's Girlfriend at Signature Theatre. In response to a reading of her new musical Montgomery at the Kennedy Center, DC Metro Theater Arts declared, she "has already made a mark on American musical theater.”

Formed in 2019, the Theatre Now Musical Writers Lab is a community of 20 writing teams who meet regularly to work on the development of new musicals. This is a highly skilled, active, and collaborative group focused on embracing and fostering the diversity of musical theatre. The current Lab consists of 35 librettists, lyricists, and composers from the NYC area and around the world from diverse backgrounds ‒ straight and gay, cis and trans, young and old, rural and urban, white, Black, Latinx, and Asian. It includes members of ASCAP, BMI, and the Dramatists Guild; an Alan Menken Award winner; a Fulbright Scholar; and the first ever Black List Musical Film Fellow as well as early-career writers. This year, shows from Lab members have been featured in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Eugene O'Neill National Music Theatre Conference (NMTC), and, for the third year in a row, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals.

AriDy Nox

 is a multi-disciplinary black femme storyteller and social activist with a variety of forward-thinking creative works under her/their belt including the sci-fi operetta Project Tiresias, the ancestral reckoning play A Walless Church, the afrofuturist ecopocalypse musical Metropolis, and many others. AriDy creates out of the vehement belief that creating a future in which marginalized peoples are free requires a radical imagination. Their tales are offerings intended to function as small parts of an ancient, expansive, awe-inspiring tradition of world-shaping, created by and for black femmes. As a graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at Tisch School of the Performing Arts at NYU and a beneficiary of the Emerging Writer's Group at The Public Theatre, she has been inordinately privileged to share the workings of her imagination among a vast array of inspiring and supportive artists of various radical backgrounds throughout the city.

Jacinth Greywoode 

is a New York-based composer and music director whose family hails from Sierra Leone. As music director and arranger, Jacinth has worked on various readings, workshops, and shows with The Public Theater, Universal Theatrical Group, RCI Theatricals, Roundabout Theatre Company, and NYU Tisch among others. Recent credits include Associate MD for the critically acclaimed revival of Jelly's Last Jam at Encores! City Center, orchestrations and music direction for the off-Broadway revival of I Can Get It For You Wholesale at Classic Stage (Drama Desk award for Best Revival, Outer Critics Circle award for Best Revival), and arrangements and music direction for Leslye Headland's Cult of Love at Berkeley Rep (coming to Broadway next month). Jacinth also served as Music Consultant and Arranger for Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Soldier's Play, which was nominated for the 2020 Best Revival of a Play Tony Award. B.A. in Music from Princeton University, MFA from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, PhD in Composition from Stony Brook University.

Thalia Ranjbar

 is a screenwriter, librettist, director, and choreographer with a passion for elevating and developing stories that include voices of queer and BIPOC communities. She is a recent graduate of New York University where she earned an MFA from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Thalia was 1 of 12 international participants selected for the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, where she received mentorship from Crag Carnelia, Andrew Lippa, Lindy Robbins, and Autumn Rowe. Previously, Thalia received her Honors Specialization in Kinesiology from the University of Western Ontario where she avidly studied theatre and dance.

Kat Cartusciello

 is a queer NYC-based composer, sound designer, and multi-instrumentalist who works as Jason Robert Brown's music assistant. Her original works include Village Song (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater) and Walks of Life (Blindspot Collective/La Jolla Playhouse) among others. Kat is the recipient of the Max Dreyfus ASCAP Award and the Betty Green Fischoff Troupers Scholarship. She received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and her BA (Music) from Columbia University in 2016. She also plays bass guitar regularly at 54 Below.

Britt Bonney

is an award-winning music director and composer who most recently conducted the off-Broadway premiere of A Sign of the Times. She conducted the world premiere of Once Upon a One More Time at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC and the DC premiere of Todd Almond's Girlfriend at Signature Theatre, for which she received a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Musical Direction. Britt has frequently been commissioned to create new works for young audiences (including for the AMERICAN GIRL LIVE tour). Her vocals can be heard on 2017's Beauty and the Beast film as well as Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame cast album, which she also mixed and mastered together with Stephen Schwartz. Britt is also an accomplished copyist, having served as a music assistant to Alex Lacamoire, Alan Menken, Shaina Taub, and Kelli O'Hara. Alumna of the BMI Workshop and the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. M.A. in vocal pedagogy from Columbia University.

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