Theater News

Musical Theatre Works Suspends Operations

It was announced late this afternoon that the board of directors of Musical Theatre Works, New York’s only not-for-profit organization devoted exclusively to the creation and development of new musicals, has voted to suspend the company’s operations after 21 years. The board hopes to restart the company at a later date but the staff is being laid off and Musical Theatre Works will vacate its longtime home on Lafayette Street, which includes offices, rehearsal studios, and a 65-seat theater.

Over the course of its history, Musical Theatre Works has nurtured more than 200 new musicals with comissions, readings, and workshops; the shows have been produced on and Off-Broadway and at theaters across the country. In the past year, a dozen new musicals were developed at MTW, including Michael John LaChiusa’s R. Shomon (which will open at the Williamstown Theatre Festival this July), It’s Only Life: The Songs of John Bucchino (to be presented at Arielle Tepper’s 2004 Summer Performance Festival), and Harold and Maude: The Musical (scheduled to premiere in January at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey).

MTW’s educational programs include Springboard NYC (a college-to-career “boot camp” for aspiring artists), songwriting workshops with established musical theater composers, and a Meet-The-Artist Series in which more than 70 distinguished musical theater figures have participated.

“We are deeply saddened to make this decision,” MTW’s artistic director Thomas Cott said, “but the current adverse funding climate has made it impossible for us to sustain our artistic and educational programming. We take pleasure in knowing that MTW has helped a lot of musical theatre artists, and we thank everyone who played a role in making that possible.”