FESTIVAL OF NEW AMERICAN MUSICALS

Two-month festival being planned for May-June, 2008

Marcia Seligson and Bob Klein have announced the Festival of New American Musicals, a two-month cross-cultural musical theatre festival planned for May-June, 2008, throughout Southern California. Seligson and Klein, Executive Producers of the Festival, made the announcement at a launch event held on February 28, 2007 in the Founders Room of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center of Los Angeles County.

Seligson and Klein are working closely with two primary advisors, celebrated Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin, Godspell) and Michael Kerker, Director of Musical Theatre of ASCAP, the leading performing rights organization that represents composers, lyricists, songwriters and publishers.

The honorary chairs of the festival are Schwartz, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Jason Alexander and Angela Lansbury.

The Festival will be home to full productions, staged readings, and workshops of musicals in progress, cabaret events, concerts, master classes, and other events. The producers anticipate being in partnership with more than thirty Los Angeles area performing arts organizations, each of which will produce a new American musical, during the Festival time period.

Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Rubicon Theatre, and Pepperdine University have Festival events secured at this time, with discussions being held and pending announcements from most of the major area theatrical performing arts companies, as well as universities and colleges.

The producers are working on scouting material with Geffen Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, Old Globe Theatre, UCLA Live!, University of Southern California, Southgate High School, Birmingham High School, and other venues.

The festival organization will supply an umbrella marketing campaign. Irwin Kornfeld at Westchester Media is in charge of sponsorships; the Festival is supported, in part, by the County of Los Angeles.

The festival's website is now online: www.lafestival.org

Seligson said, "The climate for new musicals right now is as rich and diverse as any time in my theatre-going life – it's as though the medium were going through a great renaissance and we are in a new golden age of creative explosion. This week there are thirteen new musicals in the New York Times ABCs listings, five from this season alone. This is a remarkable number given that fifteen years ago "Jelly's Last Jam" was the sole musical with a new score that survived the season."

The impetus for this festival was born out of observing how many new musicals are launched from Southern California's regional theatres. Three of Broadway's biggest hits, "Wicked," "Jersey Boys," and "The Drowsy Chaperone" were developed in Southern California, to be joined this season by "Curtains" and later by "Sister Act." The area's leading regional theatres — Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse, the Old Globe, Pasadena Playhouse, and Geffen Playhouse — all are actively producing new musicals. Seligson and Klein are in discussions with all of the theatres, and many others, about their participation in the Festival.

Bob Klein said, "It is our goal to make the festival a permanent celebration with new musicals on a regular basis and to establish a permanent center for the development and workshopping of new musicals in Los Angeles."

Festival 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 will give many of them a chance to be showcased and celebrated very publicly here on the west coast is a truly fantastic gift."

A major element of the Festival is the education component – to bring new musicals into the schools and students into the theatres. Honorary chair Stephen Sondheim said, " What impresses me most about the festival is its producers' vision for developing new and young musical theater 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 will also provide free tickets to the large array of its events over the six weeks of its duration for both students and teachers - another way to open the door to a lifelong love of musical theater."

Seligson founded and was Producing Artistic Director of Reprise! Broadway's Best, which has become 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.

Seligson and Klein, and members of their Advisory Board have already reviewed over 60 new American musicals for inclusion in the festival, and are bringing these to discussion for potential productions with the area performing arts companies.

Events of the Festival are announced at this time:

• "The Grapes of Wrath, the west coast premiere of a suite of music from the new musical drama by Ricky Ian Gordon, based on the classic John Steinbeck novel, will be performed in concert by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted by its musical director Grant Gershon.
  
  
• "Sarah Plain and Tall," west coast premiere of the musical based on the best-selling novel by Patricia MacLachlen, produced by Pepperdine University theatre department. In addition Pepperdine University will present a concert of new music by Jason Robert Brown.
  
• "Snapshots," premiere of a new musical revue based on the songs of Stephen Schwartz, staged by the Rubicon Theater in Ventura. The Rubicon will also present John Bucchino's "It's Only Life."
  
  
• ASCAP Workshops — All during the festival, ASCAP will workshop new musicals. These readings, open to the public and to students, will allow guests into the process of seeing how a musical develops. The workshops are currently planned for as many as 20 venues all around the Southland.
  
  
• Cabaret Performances – Well known cabaret artists, such as Amanda McBroom, Marilynn Lovell Matz, Karen Mason, Jason Graae, Ann and Liz Calloway, Karen Morrow, and Faith Prince, as well as many others, will perform the work of current musical theatre composers and writers, in various venues in and around Los Angeles.
  
  

Seligson and Klein have assembled the following Advisory Board:

• Karyl Lynn Burns, Artistic Director, Rubicon Theatre
• Ted Chapin, Executive Director, Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization
• Darcie Denkert, President, MGM Live
• Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director, Pasadena Playhouse
• Bonnie Eskenazi, Attorney, Greenberg Glusker
• Bronya Galef, Founder, The Galef Institute
• Grant Gershon, Music Director, The Los Angeles Master Chorale
• Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director, Sundance Institute Theatre Program
• Michael Kerker, Director of Musical Theatre, ASCAP
• David Lee, TV/Theatre Writer/Director
• Judith Light, Actor/Community Activist
• Steven Linder, Manager, Artistic Planning, The Hollywood Bowl
• Terence McFarland, Executive Director, LA Stage Alliance
• Ginny Mancini, Former President, Henry Mancini Institute
• Marilynn Lovell Matz, Performer/Founder Peter Matz Educational Program

Madelyn Puzo, Dean, USC School of Theater

• Michael Ritchie, Artistic Director, Center Theatre Group
• Claire Rothman, Board of Directors, Reprise
• Richard Salfas, Director of Licensing, Music Theatre International
• David Sefton, Director, UCLA Live!
• David Zippel, Lyricist/Director

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