Since ’08 when the Festival of New American Musicals began to celebrate the return of the musical to the mainstream of American popular culture, we’ve seen the reverberations grow, from Wicked and the High School Musicals, and Spring Awakening and Glee to everywhere. But no more strongly than here in SoCal. And not just in the big shows headed to and from Broadway.
“Everywhere” now includes network TV, cable, the Internet, smaller theaters developing more intimate forms of musical storytelling and colleges, high schools, middle schools, elementary schools and community centers where new generations of young writers, composers and burgeoning performers are expressing themselves creatively. Where a decade ago they were organizing rock bands, today they are deciding, in the good old tradition of Judy and Mickey to “put on a show.”
The Festival’s mission is to stretch ourselves widely to celebrate all of that excitement, to foster the creators, to train and showcase the performers and in the process also to help build the next generation of musical theater audience and support.
April 13, 2010, Los Angeles – 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.
A donation will help to keep everyone at the Festival of New American Musicals singing and dancing throughout 2010! Your generosity is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
"That combination of darkness and light intrigued Marcia Seligson, co-founder of the Festival of New American Musicals, which is committed to supporting new works and building new (younger) audiences. This year's three-month festival, which ends in August, involves dozens of shows around Southern California."
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New York may have Broadway, but we’ve got TV and the Internet. Last year we had Glee. This year we’re introducing our first original Internet musical, Sunset Players. It was created by one of the Southland’s most talented young composers, Jordan Beck. You can find the trailer right here on our home page and that will take you to the complete episodes.
If you haven’t attended one of the Festival’s entertainment-filled benefit garden parties yet, you’re missing wondrous afternoons filled with elegant food, and all-star performances honoring the likes of Stephen Sondheim and Stephen Schwartz. If you’re not already on the festival mailing list, go to info@lafestival.org and sign up.
The leading organizations in showcasing new musicals in New York and in Southern California are joining forces to promote new shows, new composers and new talent coast to coast. An alliance between the New York Musical Theatre Festival and the Festival of New American Musicals has been announced by NYMF Executive Director & Producer, Isaac Robert Hurwitz and FNAM Co-Executive Producers, Bob Klein, Linda Shusett and Marcia Seligson, with the goals of marketing the two festivals to one another’s communities, exchanging shows and events and initiating the development, workshopping and production of new musicals. The two festivals will continue to take place back-to-back with FNAM in the summer months and NYMF in the Fall.
Annually, at the Festival’s closing party, we honor a giant of new American musical theater. Last year it was Stephen Schwartz. This year, on August 21st, we will honor our local musical giant, Jason Robert Brown. This year is also Jason’s 40th birthday, so we’ll have candles as well as phenomenal entertainment.
Submissions of new musicals to the Festival are welcome. However once we accept your submission, there is no guarantee that it will finally be chosen for the Festival. That is because the Festival does not produce on its own. The Festival works to find a venue that is willing to produce each musical. Once we find a theater, we put them in touch with you to work out details. Our mission is to provide pr, a marketing umbrella, advertising, and promotion.
Before we can accept them we ask you to send an Email and provide us with:
Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Music by Alan Menken
Book by Janus Cercone with Glenn Slater
Lyrics by
Glenn Slater
Direction and Choreography by Rob Ashford
"Are you ready for a miracle?"
You'll be dancing in the aisles when con man Jonas Nightingale brings his gospel-charged tent revival to rain-starved Kansas. Four-time Tony Award-nominee Raúl Esparza and Golden Globe Award-nominee Brooke Shields will star in this world premiere Broadway-bound new musical.
World Premiere Production
"The year's best musical! Though early in its creative life, the next major American musical could well be in the making." — Time Magazine
A next generation Broadway musical that uses the vocabulary of hip-hop while sampling Othello and Brecht to spin an epic tale of struggle and redemption sure to entertain audience members from 15 to 50 to 150.
