17th Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals Announced for March
1/26/2023 10:10am
Goodspeed Musicals will present its 17th Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, a three-day festival of brand-new works with insider events, seminars, cabarets and staged readings. The Festival kicks off on Fri Mar 17 at The Goodspeed with a staged reading of "Double Helix" with Book, Music and Lyrics by Madeline Myers. In the mid-20th century, the race to find the structure of DNA grips the scientific community. One brilliant young researcher, Rosalind Franklin, will stop at nothing to uncover one of life’s great mysteries. But will she sacrifice what makes her human to discover what makes us human? Sat Mar 18 will be highlighted by a staged reading of "The Great Emu War," a new musical comedy based on true events, which has a Book by Cal Silberstein and Music and Lyrics by Paul Hodge. Remember that one time that the Australian government sent their army with machine guns to wage war on emus in Western Australia? Neither do most people…but when Edith, the headstrong warbler, and her flock begin to feed on the wheat of local farmers—the humans take up arms against Australia’s favorite feathered friends.The final day of the Festival features "Little Miss Perfect," a new musical inspired by the viral single song of the same name with Book, Music and Lyrics by Joriah Kwamé. Inspired by the viral single of the same name, the musical tells the story of Noelle, a bi-racial teen navigating her senior year of high school after her mom and stepdad invite a study abroad student to be her roommate. But when a classmate becomes the victim of systemic racism at her school, Noelle must decide whether she will be true to herself and an ally to her peers, or if she will settle for simply being “Little Miss Perfect.” Tickets can be purchased online at www.goodspeed.org. Preparations for the Festival begin on Mar 6th when the three teams of writers and composers arrive on the Goodspeed campus and dedicate their time to further writing and composing their musicals in development. They are joined by musical theatre students from The Hartt School, Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Montclair State University, who take part in rehearsals and continued development of the material. The intensive retreat culminates with Goodspeed’s Festival of New Musicals, which showcases staged readings of the new musicals developed during the two-week long program. The Festival of New Musicals is produced by Goodspeed Musicals’ Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre. Press contact: Dan McMahon/Goodspeed Musical (860/873-8664x324)...