New Works in Progress: SMALL TOWN STORY

An interview with Joe Barros, Artistic Director of New York Theatre Barn in New York, NY about NYTB's work with Sammy Buck and Brandon James Gwinn's Small Town Story (formerly Speargrove Presents), a 2011-2012 Writers Residency Grant recipient.

At the urging of his father Larry, adorkable Scott Ames auditions for the Speargrove High School musical to get closer to drama club queen bee Caroline. But when Larry discovers the show is Rent he pulls Scott out. With the arrival of New York transplant Alex, her outspoken mom Lois and rising community fear about the show, the stage is set for a controversy unlike any small town has ever seen. As the escalation drives wedges between parents and children, Speargrove, Texas will discover that the show can't open until their minds do. Inspired by actual events, Small Town Story explores the indelible power of theatre and the inherent dangers of silence.
Small Town Story has a unique genesis. How did NYTB originally go about commissioning this show?
In January 2010, New York Theatre Barn assembled 17 writers, led by sole book writer Sammy Buck, to conceive a new musical. Real-life events in Rowlett, Texas pertaining to a controversial production of Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent provided an irresistible springboard for the writing as NYTB set out to create a show by a community of writers about community. NYTB's involvement with Small Town Story actually led to a change in the artistic and institutional mission of the company. We became so attracted to telling untold stories about real people, and often based on real events, that we made it our primary focus.

Why did you narrow the team down to just two writers?
After launching NYTB in 2007, we were given the unique opportunity by Daryl Roth Theatricals to produce a monthly show in their D-Lounge, and our core developmental platform for emerging writers and new work was born. Through this monthly program (now in its 6th year), I was immediately exposed to over 50 writers in the first three years alone. With such incredible creative resources at our fingertips, I knew we had to devise a piece together. While Small Town Story (then Speargrove Presents) started out as a piece written by committee, I ultimately made the decision to choose Sammy Buck and Brandon James Gwinn as its sole writers in order to give the piece clarity and authenticity, primarily in the score.

After working on the piece for about a year, the team went from 17 to 2 to improve the show's cohesion. Buck and young composer Gwinn were serendipitously paired on a song to

National Fund for New Musicals recipients announced!

We are honored to announce this year's recipients of our National Fund for New Musicals grants. Now in its fifth year, the National Fund has distributed 56 grants totaling $234,000 to non-profit member theatres around America.

A special thanks to our funders including Stacey Mindich Productions, The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation and The ASCAP Foundation. This fund would not be possible without their contributions. If you are interested in supporting theatres developing new musicals around the country, please consider making a contribution to our National Fund for New Musicals.

National Fund grants of $10,000 to support full productions have been awarded to:
Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, MA) for Southern Comfort by Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis. This project previously received a Project Development Grant in support of its time at CAP21, a Writers Residency Grant for its time at Playwrights Horizons and was presented in NAMT's 2012 Festival of New Musicals.
Transport Group (New York, NY) for The Memory Show by Sara Cooper and Zachary Redler, with support from Stacey Mindich Productions. The Memory Show was presented in NAMT's 2009 Festival of New Musicals. 

National Fund grants between $2,500 and $5,000 to support a workshop or reading have been awarded to:

New Work in Progress- FAR FROM HEAVEN at Playwrights Horizons

An interview with Kent Nicholson, Director of Musical Theatre and Literary Associate at Playwrights Horizons, about their upcoming production of Far From Heaven, with a book by Richard Greenberg, Music by Scott Frankel and Lyrics by Fest alumnus Michael Korie (Blanco- '89). The show is a recipient of one of NAMT's National Fund for New Musicals Production Grants.

Cathy Whitaker seems to be the picture-perfect wife and mother in 1957 suburban Connecticut. But roiling beneath the surface, secret longings and forbidden desires cause her world to unravel, with incendiary consequences. With a lush score that is both jazz-inflected and hauntingly lyrical, Far From Heaven is a powerful story of romance, betrayal and intolerance, as a woman grapples with her identity in a society on the verge of upheaval.
Image: Kelli O'Hara in Far From Heaven at Williamstown Theatre Festival



Far From Heaven is a Playwrights Horizons' commission. What came first: the project or the writers?
The writers came first. It was their idea. Scott Frankel and Michael Korie had talked with Richard Greenberg about working on something together during the run of Grey Gardens on Broadway. In their subsequent discussions, Far From Heaven came up as a project they all admired that they thought could have a new life as a musical. They came to us with the idea and we thought it was a good one.

Why choose to musicalize Far From Heaven and why were Scott, Michael and Richard the right team for the job?
The film is an exploration of the nostalgia we have for "simpler" times. Those times have a dark side, a side that forces people to live in denial of their own prejudices and desires. The film places its main characters on the edge of the '50s bleeding into the social consciousness of the '60s. Shot in a melodramatic style, as an homage to Douglas Sirk, it contains all the elements of a great musical: inner emotional lives, strong plotting, a simple character arc. The lushness of the film's visuals have translated into a lushness in Scott Frankel's score. In transforming the story from one medium to another, we feel that we have the ability to continue to explore the themes, that the film begins to explore and dig a little deeper into the characters' emotional lives.

This is your theatre's second time at bat with Korie and Frankel. What draws Playwrights Horizons to their work and why are they a good match with your audience and mission?
Our focus at Playwrights is always on the writers, and our mission includes composers and lyricists as writers. We focus on writer driven work, which tends to mean that the projects we produce are the ideas and province of the writers' obsessions with the world. Scott and Michael have brought us many of their projects. Obviously, some of any producing decision is an aesthetic one, meaning we simply like their work. But beyond that we find that artist-driven work tends to move the form forward and explore the boundaries of what the form can be. Grey Gardens created a narrative out of documentary source material, and Far From Heaven is almost operatic in its approach to the material. They're still musicals, but they play with the form in artistically challenging ways.

The show was recently at Williamstown Theatre Festival before coming to Playwrights Horizons. How has the show changed and grown over this process?
The piece went through some significant tweaking during the reading and production process. While the plot is generally a given and hasn't changed much, how many scenes we keep from the movie, how we elide them together and where we choose to place our focus has shifted a lot, as has the amount of underscoring and music. Some characters have been made significantly smaller than they are in the film. And we learned a great deal from the Williamstown audiences. The opportunity to see the piece in a fully realized production prior to coming into NY, while we still have a chance to make significant changes, not just in the text, but also design and approach, is invaluable.

What will change as the show heads to the Playwrights Horizons stage?
You'll have to come and see!

Why should people come see Far From Heaven on West 42nd Street?
Our space is unique in that is equipped pretty well for musicals and yet it is small and intimate. This is a grand show in many ways and the opportunity to see something of this size in a house as intimate as ours is rare. It'll be a special experience.

For more info about Far From Heaven, please visit www.playwrightshorizons.org. 

New Work in Progress- OTHELLO: THE REMIX at Chicago Shakes

An interview with Rick Boynton, Creative Producer at Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST), about their upcoming production of Othello: The Remix by the Q Brothers. The show was a past recipient of a NAMT National Fund for New Musicals Writers Residency Grant.
This fresh urban take on Shakespeare's tragedy is spun out and lyrically rewritten over original beats by The Q Brothers, America's leading re-interpreters of Shakespeare through hip-hop (Funk It Up About Nothin', The Bomb-itty of Errors). Whether you're looking for a rockin' night of rhythm and rhyme or a new way to think about Shakespeare, Othello: The Remix delivers an intense, high-energy spin like no other.


How did CST meet the Q Brothers? 
We first met several years back when CST produced their show Bombitty of Errors, a hip-hop musical based on The Comedy of Errors. They approached us a few years later to see if we would be interested in developing a show based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.  We agreed, developed the musical (Funk It Up About Nothin') and premiered it here in our studio theatre.

Why did you commission them to adapt another Shakespeare play?
The idea for Othello: The Remix really found its way to us.  The Globe in London was organizing a festival of Shakespeare's work, each performed by different countries around the world, for the cultural Olympiad prior to last summer's Olympic Games.  They had seen Funk when we performed in London, had liked our work, and wanted us to represent the US by creating a hip hop piece based on Othello.  It was an exciting opportunity and, quite honestly, a bit of a daunting yet exciting challenge.  I always find those the most interesting, so we accepted.

What was it like to take a show created in Chicago to international audiences?

National Fund for New Musicals recipients announced!

Congratulations to the 7 member theatres selected to receive grants from 
our National Fund for New Musicals this year. In the last 4 years, the Fund has given out 45 grants totaling $197,000. 

Production Grants of $10,000 have been awarded to:
Diversionary Theatre (CA) for Harmony, Kansas by Bill Nelson & Anna K. Jacobs
Playwrights Horizons (NY) for Far From Heaven by Scott Frankel, Richard Greenberg & Michael Korie ('89–Blanco)
TheatreWorks (CA) for Wheelhouse by Gene Lewin, Brendan Milburn ('04–Striking 12, '11–Watt?!?) & Valerie Vigoda ('04–Strking 12).

Project Development Grants between $2,000-$3,000 have been awarded to:
American Musical Theatre Project at Northwestern University (IL) for The Verona Project by Amanda Dehnert.
Center Theatre Group (CA) for a new musical about urban superheroes by Matt Sax.
Dallas Theatre Center (TX) for Stagger Lee by Justin Ellington, Will Power & Daryl Waters.
Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre at University of Oklahoma for Something Wicked This Way Comes by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill (both, '07–The Story of My Life).

A special thanks to all of our National Fund for New Musicals donors including Stacey Mindich Productions, The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation, The ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund and everyone who contributed in honor of our former Executive Director Kathy Evans.
If you are interested in contributing to the National Fund, please contact Executive Director Betsy King Militello. Donations of all sizes help grow the Fund and provide more grants to new musicals across the country.


Congratulations to all of the members and artists involved in these exciting projects! 

New Work in Progress: FEBRUARY HOUSE

An interview with Maria Goyanes, Associate Producer at The Public Theater, about February House by Gabriel Kahane and Seth Bockley as they prepare to bring the show to New York this May. The show was the recipient of one of our National Fund forNew Musicals Project Development Grants.

About February House: Carson McCullers. Benjamin Britten. W.H. Auden. Gypsy Rose Lee. Visionary and flamboyant editor George Davis transforms a dilapidated Brooklyn boardinghouse into a bohemian commune for these leading lights of 1940s New York. The residents of 7 Middagh Street create a tumultuous and remarkable makeshift family searching for love, inspiration and refuge from the looming war in Europe. Inspired by true events, this powerful and funny newmusical marks the first commission of The Public's Musical Theater Initiative.

Why did The Public Theater decide to commission Gabe and Seth to write February House?
Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director of The Public Theater, has known Gabe since his college years at Brown University. They had stayed in touch while Gabe made his way through the music world circuit, putting out a pop album, composing classical pieces and occasionally music directing for the theater. Ted Sperling, when starting The Public's Music Theater Initiative, asked Gabe if he was ready to try his hand at writing a musical. He became The Public's Music Theater Fellow and then pitched the idea of February House, from Sherrill Tippin's book of the same name. When it came to finding a bookwriter, Gabe turned to his old college friend Seth Bockley, who had been making a name for himself as an emerging playwright and director in Chicago.

The Public Theater has been working on the show for a few years in many different readings. How has the show changed since the first reading in 2009?
The show has changed so much—and all for the better! Gabe and Seth always knew that they were making a different kind of musical, a chamber piece of sorts, with 9 leads and no chorus. So much of the development of this piece has been about honing in on the three principals—George Davis, W.H. Auden and Carson McCullers—and their needs for this house, hopes for their art, and the looming war in Europe. Because there is no single protagonist, the piece has been a delicate balance of these three storylines intersecting, influencing and playing off of each other.

This summer the writers had a chance to have a workshop at New York Stage and Film, in collaboration with The Public and supported by our National Fund for New Musicals. How was this process vital to prepare for the productions?
As the piece is set in an old Victorian home in Brooklyn, NY, the house is definitely a main character in the piece. How it comes together, how the characters inhabit the space together —these are key discoveries to be made for the show to be successful. New York Stage and Film was the first time we had the show up on its feet, and we could start to problem solve those ideas. It was invaluable.

The show opened last month at Long Wharf Theatre, in a co-production with The Public, before it heads to NYC in May. What is the importance of this co-production to the show's development trajectory and why was Long Wharf chosen as your partner?
Gordon Edelstein [Long Wharf's Artistic Director] is a great friend and colleague of Oskar Eustis. We shared the piece with him and he has provided incredible dramaturgical support and nurturing for Gabe and Seth. New York is a scary place for a first-time musical—musicals are such complex pieces to get right (and this one more so than others). It felt important to try to elongate the rehearsal process for it with a first stab at a production out-of-town, to learn from the audience and the experience, and then bring it to NYC.

Why should we all head to The Public Theater this May to catch February House?
Gabe is one of the most exciting young composers of the decade. His music is beautiful and haunting and true—this is your chance to see the first musical from an artist who is sure to have an impact on the American theatre for a long time to come.

For more information about February House, please visit www.publictheater.org.