Brown, Schwartz, et al. Set for L.A. Festival of New American Musicals

Works by Jason Robert Brown, John Bucchino, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Stephen Schwartz will be part of the initial Festival of New American Musicals, which is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles in May and June 2008. Specific dates and venues have yet to be announced.

Marcia Seligson and Bob Klein will be the festival’s executive producers, while composer Stephen Schwartz and Michael Kerker, the director of musical theatre for ASCAP, are its primary advisors. Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Angela Lansbury, Jason Alexander, and Schwartz are its honorary chairs.

Among the works scheduled for the festival are a concert of Brown’s music, Bucchino’s revue It’s Only Life, a suite from Gordon’s opera The Grapes of Wrath, a new revue of Schwartz’s songs called Snapshots, and a new musical version of the family novel Sarah Plain and Tall. Cabaret artists who are expected to participate in the festival include Amanda McBroom, Karen Mason, Jason Graae, Faith Prince, Karen Morrow, and Ann Hampton and Liz Callaway.