NAMT Announces Selections for 15th Annual Festival

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) has announced the selections for its 15th Annual Festival of New Musicals, September 21-22.

A number of shows presented at the festival since 1989 have gone on to commercial success, including such now-established titles as Thoroughly Modern Millie, Children of Eden, Songs for a New World, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, and Honk!.

The shows that have been selected for this year’s festival are:

• The Ambition Bird by Matthew Sheridan, about Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton
• Ballad of Little Pinks, with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Marion Adler, and a book by Connie Grappo, based on a Damon Runyon short story
• Harold and Maude: The Musical, with book and lyrics by Tom Jones and music by Joseph Thalken, based on the film by Colin Higgins about a romance between a young man and an older woman
• Princesses, with a book by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, lyrics by David Zippel, and music by Matthew Wilder, adapted from A Little Princess
• Sarah, Plain and Tall, with a book by Julia Jordan, lyrics by Nell Benjamin, and music by Laurence O’Keefe, based on Patricia MacLachlan’s Newberry Award-winning novel of life in 19th century Kansas
• Swing Shift, with a book by David Armstrong, new music by Michael Rafter, and new lyrics by Mark Waldrop, a musical composed of 1940s hit songs telling the story of two women who discover more about themselves while their husbands are off at war
• Two Queens, One Castle, with book and lyrics by Jevetta Steele and Thomas W. Jones II and music by William Hubbard and J.D. Steele, dealing with life, love, homosexuality, and more in the African-American community, and
• Was, with a book and lyrics by Barry Kleinbort and music by Joseph Thalken based on Geoff Ryman’s novel, a modern adaptation of The Wizard of Oz set in both the 1870s and the 1980s.