PRESENTED AS PART OF THE FESTIVAL OF NEW AMERICAN MUSICALS |
May 4-6, 2010
The Boy in the Bathroom
Book and Lyrics by Michael Lluberes
Music and additional lyrics by Joe Maloney
Directed by Artistic Director Oanh Nguyen*
Musical Direction by Rob Blaney
- 04/09/10 ARTICLE: Broadway World
- 04/12/10 ARTICLE: Playbill.com
THEATER ARTICLE
2010 Festival of New American Musicals Announced, New Partnership with NYMTF
by BWW News Desk, Broadway World
The 2010 Festival of New American Musicals, a three month musical theatre festival, will be held May 16 through August 21 2010, throughout Southern California. Marcia Seligson, Bob Klein, and Linda Shusett are the Executive Producers of the annual festival, now in its third year.
The Festival of New American Musicals is home to full productions, staged readings, workshops of musicals in progress, cabaret events, and concerts. The organizers are working in partnership with over thirty Southern California area performing arts organizations; each will produce a new American musical during the Festival time period.
Pre-festival and festival offerings include Michael John LaChuisa’s “See What I Wanna See” at the Blank Theatre Company, Jonathan Brielle’s “Nightmare Alley” at the Geffen Playhouse, “Ruby Hayes Sings Bessie’s Blues” at the Whitefire Theatre, “Luck” by Mark Waldrop and Brad Ross at the Noho Arts Center, Michael Lluberes and Joe Maloney’s “The Boy in the Bathroom” at the Chance Theatre, Long Beach Opera’s production of Ricky Ian Gordon’s “Orpheus & Euridice,” and “The Sunset Players,” the Festival’s first Internet musical, that can be accessed on YouTube by anyone with a computer.
There are major educational initiatives aimed at a diverse array of students of all ages. These include Marquez Elementary School, College of the Canyons and specialized programs for high school performers, composers and librettists throughout the southland, including the Festival’s own Academy for Young Performers, which supports talented high school and college students toward careers in Musical Theatre.
The Festival is announcing a new partnership with the distinguished New York Musical Theatre Festival, headed by its Executive Director and Producer Isaac Robert Hurwitz. The New York Musical Theatre Festival, whose mission is strikingly similar to the Festival of New American Musicals, provides a launching pad for the next generation of musicals and their creators to ensure the continued vitality of America's greatest art form. NYMF, like FNAM, discovers, nurtures, and promotes promising musical theatre artists and producers at all stages of development, and reaches diverse audience through vibrant, accessible, and powerful new work. This year, the New York Musical Theatre Festival will be held September 27 to October 17 with 30 productions and 30 special events in 7 Off-Broadway theatres (200-seats theatres or less).
Bob Klein, Festival executive producer said, “We are just beginning to work with the New York Musical Theatre Festival, which has presented 232 new musicals since 2004. More than sixty of these shows have gone on to larger productions. Our new, developing working relationship will allow us to have a broader reach to find shows for both festivals, and an exchange of ideas, especially for educational programs, on both coasts.”
The first part of the exchange will bring “Carry On!!” a new musical that tells the story of Thurgood Marshall and the beginnings of the civil rights struggle, to New York as an Official Selection of the 2010 NYMF Festival. 30 fourth through seventh grade history students at Marquez Charter School in Pacific Palisades perform “Carry On!” and these students will be the youngest group to be a part of the NYMF festival. “Carry On” will be performed on June 9 at the Marquez Charter School, and for the public on June 13 at Magicopolis Theater, 1418-4th Street, Santa Monica. (310) 451-2241.
“’Carry On!’ exemplifies the work of the Festival,” said Festival Executive Producer Marcia Seligson,” and it most speaks to our education program, one of the major components of the Festival. Our program engages students of all ages in musical theatre – as performers, creators, and audience. It will be performed here before it moves to New York.”
In February Stephen Schwartz helped inaugurate the Festival’s newly formed Academy for Young Performers with a master class for aspiring musical theatre performers. This May 23 at the Gallery Theatre at Barnsdall Park, the Academy hosts young composers and librettists for a day-long workshop, called “Words and Music,” of lectures, demonstrations, and seminars designed to give them guidance, direction and training to help develop their talent in writing a musical. The faculty for this day includes Jason Robert Brown ("13"), Jeff Marx ("Avenue Q") and composer-lyricist Georgia Stitt.
Festival Executive Producer Bob Klein said, “We have the talent and the interest on the part of the theaters, the schools, and from the community to become a major resource for new composers, lyricists, book writers, directors, producers, choreographers, dancers and actors – more than 3,000 members of our musical theatre community participated in the ’08 and ‘09 festivals. We have had six universities, nine high schools, colleges, and cultural centers performing new musicals in the festival. Our priority is to expand, inspire and engage the creative and performing talents of the youth of Southern California to develop the new American musical theater of the future as well as the new audience for that theater.”
Festival Honorary Co-Chair and advisor Stephen Schwartz said, “In my capacity as artistic director of the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop and as one of the judges for the Jonathan Larson Foundation grant, I have heard the work of so many promising and talented young musical theatre composers and lyricists. The fact that this Festival continues to give many of them a chance to be showcased and celebrated very publicly here on the West Coast is a truly fantastic gift.”
Honorary Co-chair Stephen Sondheim said, “What impresses me most about the Festival is its producers' vision for developing new and young musical theatre audiences all around Southern California. By working directly with ethnically diverse high schools and colleges and helping them produce new musicals in their schools, the organizers of the Festival hope to ignite a passion for theater in these young people.”
The Festival has programs working at the elementary, high school, college and university levels. This year, 100 fifth grade history students at Marquez Charter School in Pacific Palisades will also perform “Water And Power,” a musical that dramatizes the birth of the American labor movement in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1835, in two alternating casts of 50 students each – in addition to performing “Carry On.” These students are learning American history by performing musicals that dramatize their course work. “Water and Power” is performed at Marquez School on June 15 and 17.
Also at the elementary level is “We Still Can't Stand Still 3,” at the William Grant Still Center at the Wilshire Methodist Church (711 South Plymouth Blvd. at Wilshire Blvd.) on May 8. Now in its third year, children (2-12) stage their own original musical especially for the Festival.
At the High School level, the PUC Education Complex will present “Tempest Toss’d,” their take on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” mixed with “Frankie and Annette” style beach party songs. Performances are on May 7 and 8 at the PUC Education Complex, 11500 Eldridge Ave. in Lake View Terrace; and May 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22,23, 24, 25 at The Ruby Theatre at The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood.
City at Peace–Los Angeles @ Inside Out Community Arts sponsors a program that brings together vastly diverse teens from across Los Angeles County to create, produce, and perform an original musical based on their lives, and their ideas for addressing the issues that concern them most. These high school students will also design and lead community action projects in the city in order to make their creative vision for change real in the world. July 9-11, Inside Out Community Arts, 2210 Lincoln Blvd, Venice, CA, 90291; 310-397-8820, www.insideoutca.org.
At the college and university level, College of the Canyons will introduce a new college credit course devoted to the development of a new musical, “Sing Me a Happy Song,” with composer-lyricist Georgia Stitt on hand to work with the students as they develop and produce a new song cycle while learning every aspect of putting on a show. This course is limited to 45 students, is presented by the College of the Canyons Theatre Department and the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center, and will be held June 7 to July 10. For information contact paul.wickline@canyons.edu.
From April 22 -25, UC Irvine will present “The Green Knight,” a comedic story of honor, love, and desire that questions not just the chivalric codes of King Arthur’s famous Round Table, but what it means to be a soldier now and forever. At Citrus College, The Citrus Singers will offer its Summer 2010, revue, a concert featuring new American musicals, including songs from “Ragtime,” “Spring Awakening,” and some Jason Robert Brown favorites, May 21-23. Haugh Performing Arts Center, 1000 W. Foothill Blvd., Glendora CA. 626-963-9411.
Seligson, Klein and Shusett are also working closely with the Festival’s two primary creative advisors, celebrated Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, composer-lyricist of “Wicked,” “Pippin,” and “Godspell,” and Michael Kerker, Director of Musical Theatre of ASCAP, the major organization which represents American theater composers.
The honorary co-chairs of the Festival of New American Musicals are Schwartz, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Jason Alexander and Angela Lansbury.
Marcia Seligson said, “As we launch the third year of the Festival, we continue to not only celebrate the remarkable American art form of musical theatre, but also foster and develop new generations of young writers, composers, and burgeoning performers. We are delighted over our new partnership with the New York Musical Theatre Festival which will tie the east and west coasts together, and the recent formation of our Academy for Young Performers, which looks to the future of the art form.”
Linda Shusett said, “We are thrilled to embrace the ever growing scope of the Festival and its participants. The vibrancy of Southern California’s musical theatre is ever remarkable and fascinating. We find musical theatre embraced everywhere -- on Network TV, Cable, and even the Internet. This year we are delighted to premiere the Festival’s first original Internet musical, ‘The Sunset Players.’”
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor as saying, “Los Angeles is pushing this country’s cultural envelope across the arts spectrum – from experimental architecture to our unabashed pursuit of edgy, young composers – and I could not be prouder to add performing arts to the list. I hope this ambitious festival blossoms into a magnet for new talent for years to come.”
Seligson founded and was Producing Artistic Director of Reprise! Broadway’s Best, which became the leading Southern California musical theatre presenting classic American musicals, from its inception in 1995 until 2005. Bob Klein was a founding board member of Reprise!, and headed the company’s successful effort to market rarely revived Broadway musicals. Shusett was a producer on last year's Festival, as well as the 2008 Festival, and has worked in the film business and is also a performer.
The Festival of New American Musicals is presented by BNY Mellon Bank. Main sponsors are the ASCAP Foundation, KUSC, BACKSTAGE, Greenberg & Glusker, and The Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
FNAM begins and ends with two fund raising events – a kick off reception on Sunday, May 16 honoring sponsor BNY Mellon Bank and a 40th birthday celebration for Jason Robert Brown on Sunday, August 21.
The Festival’s website is now online at www.lafestival.org.
The events of the 2010 Festival of New American Musicals:
“The Boy in the Bathroom” Book and Lyrics by Michael Lluberes, Music and additional lyrics by Joe Maloney. Set entirely in a most unexpected environment for a musical, “The Boy in the Bathroom” is innovative, risk–taking musical theatre with a book and lyrics that are both profound and disturbing. Chance Theatre; May 4-6. Ticket Information: (714) 777-3033/ (866) 811-4111; www.chancetheater.com.
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THEATER ARTICLE
Festival of New American Musicals Announces Line-Up; NYMF Partnership Unveiled
by Adam Hetrick, Playbill
[ Link to Playbill ]
California's Festival of New American Musicals will align with the New York Musical Theatre Festival to stage Carry On!, a new stage work based on the life of Thurgood Marshall.
The three-month festival, running May 16-Aug. 21, unites a number of Southern California theatre companies that have an original musical as part of their seasonal programming. The event also includes workshops, readings, cabaret events and concerts.
The FNAM and NYMF exchange program will mount Carry On!, which features a cast of elementary and middle school students at the Marquez Charter School June 9 and at the Magicopolis Theater June 13. The musical will then play NYMF as an official 2010 selection. (NYMF runs Sept. 27-Oct. 7)
Workshops during the festival include a “Words and Music" series on May 23 that will feature Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years, 13), Jeff Marx (Avenue Q) and composer-lyricist Georgia Stitt.
Stitt will also work alongside students at the College of the Canyons in a new academic course, "Sing Me a Happy Song." The course will focus on how to develop and produce a song cycle.
Other festival events include Nightmare Alley starring James Barbour (April 13 at the Geffen Playhouse); the Mark Waldrop-Brad Ross musical Luck! (May 17-18 at the Noho Arts Center); The Boy in the Bathroom (May 4-6 at the Chance Theatre); Ricky Ian Gordon's Orpheus & Euridice (June 11-13 at the Long Beech Opera); Lost Lady With A Violin directed by Billy Porter (June 22 at El Portal Theatre); James Barbour, Brandi Burkhardt, Hershel Sperber and Lesli Margherita in Serrano (June 20-21 at El Portal Theatre); the Broadway-bound Rupert Holmes-Sammy Cahn-Jimmy Van Heusen musical Robin and the Seven Hoods (July 14-Aug. 22 at the Old Globe Theatre); and Three: Songs from the Heart (July 16-18 at Electric Lodge).
For a complete schedule and tickets, visit LAFestival.org
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