The New York Musical Theatre Festival continues in various Manhattan theatres until 27 July.
The curtain has risen on the annual phantasmagoria known as the New York Musical Theatre Festival, now marking its 11th year. By the time the final note is sung on 27 July, it will have presented 24 new works in full productions, almost all of them receiving at least five performances. In addition, there are readings of ten other musicals aborning and a series of eight themed concerts. And if you yearn to write your own musical, you might want to attend the six-day workshop on musical songwriting, one of the six special events filling out the schedule.
In the past, NYMF – that’s the festival’s endearing almost-acronym – has acted as an incubator for a number of titles that have gone on to fulfilling afterlives. The most prominent are the three that made it to Broadway: [title of play], Chaplin, and the Pulitzer-Prize winning Next to Normal.
This year‘s productions reflect the usual motley assortment of themes, developed by a wide field of creators whose names rarely register with great familiarity, at least not yet. One show will offer a depiction of a Berlin cabaret as the Nazis rise to power. No, it’s not that Cabaret. This one is called Der Gelbe Stern (The Yellow Star) and will feature music by composers of the era, such as Friedrich Hollander.
Getting a lot of early buzz – undoubtedly for its political resonance more than anything else – is an offering called Clinton, limning the adventures of Bill and Hillary. But the show does come in with its own credentials, having been nominated for Best New Musical at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012 and then gaining a transfer to London’s King’s Head Theatre in 2013. The show has a book by Paul Hodge and Michael Hodge, and music and lyrics by Paul. The Hodge brothers happen to be Australians, so they are undoubtedly fearless in their exploration of the Clinton foibles.
Some other intriguing titles include Zombie Strippers, which promises “one wild night in a graveyard”, with book, music and lyrics by Mark LaPierre. Madame Infamy, with book by Jp Vigliotti, music and lyrics by Cardozie Jones and Sean Willis, combines the story of Marie Antoinette with that of Sally Hemmings, the slave and mistress of Thomas Jefferson, the United States’ third president. Somewhere With You will take a look at the lives of more contemporary US Southerners in a country rock musical with songs by the popular country songwriter JT Harding.
And, of course, there has to be at least one show based on a movie. The Gig is a take on the 1985 flick, written and directed by Frank D. Gilroy, which depicted a group of people who put their established careers and livelihoods on hold to follow their passion – jazz – and play their first professional job at a summer resort. Its book, music and lyrics are by Douglas J. Cohen, who in 1996 delivered the fondly remembered Off-Broadway musical No Way to Treat a Lady. The Gig also holds some interest because it’s being directed by Igor Goldin. Goldin directed his first NYMF show in 2005 (Yank!) and has returned as a director to the Festival every year since then.
Goldin, like the Festival itself, represents that unquenchable desire to make musical theatre, just as the crowds that throng to the various theatres on 42nd Street housing the NYMF shows represent the unquenchable desire to enjoy musical theatre. And I’m sure you’ve heard of 42nd Street. It’s that ‘naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty’ street they sing about almost endlessly in the 1933 flick of the same name.
Ron Cohen
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