35th Annual Festival
Two writing teams comprised of Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program alums had their new musicals featured in the 2023 NAMT Conference's 35th Annual Festival of New Musicals.
Peter Mills & Jesse Kearney, Jr. (both Cycle 8) presented their new musical THE OSCAR MICHEAUX PROJECT at the Festival. The show features lyrics & book by Kearney, Jr., lyrics and additional music by Mills, and music by collaborator Alphonso Horne and book by collaborator Cara Reichel.
From silent pictures to the talkies, groundbreaking cinematic pioneer Oscar Micheaux battles the racism of Hollywood to bring Black stories to the silver screen…facing down censorship boards, financial ruin and family betrayal. Micheaux’s legacy as America’s first major Black filmmaker comes to syncopated and soulful life in this jazz musical.
Brandy Hoang Collier (Cycle 29), Erika Ji (Cycle 30), and Clare Fuyoko Bierman (Cycle 30) presented their new musical YOKO'S HUSBAND'S KILLER'S JAPANESE WIFE, GLORIA at the Festival and features a book by Collier, lyrics by Bierman, and music by Ji.
Did Yoko Ono really break up The Beatles? Was Gloria Abe Chapman somehow responsible for John Lennon’s murder? Why do all these egotistical white guys marry Asian women? That’s weird, right? These questions keep Ruby Okamoto up at night. She‘s getting answers—even if she has to summon all of Asian America into her insomniatic fever dream.
The NAMT 35th Annual Festival of New Musicals which took place at New World Stages in New York City on October 26-27 and featured eight exciting new musicals in 45-minutes staged reading presentations in front of an industry-only audience. The NAMT Conference brings together theatre producers, presenters, and developers from around the world to celebrate the future of new musical theatre. The show was selected from a submission pool of 575 submissions.