Adam Guettel, Peter Foley, Marisa Michelson Receive Musical Commissions from Arlington’s Signature Theatre

The Signature Theatre, in Arlington, Virginia has commissioned a new musical by Adam Guettel for its 2011-2012 season, as part of its American Musical Voices Project. In addition, it has commissioned new works by Peter Foley and Marisa Michelson as part of the “Next Generation” initiative of the AMVP, and has given Chris Miller and Scott Davenport Richards honoree grants for the the development of future musical ideas.

The American Musical Voices Project is the largest single musical theater commissioning and producing initiative at any non-profit theater in America. Composers who have received commissions also include Michael John LaChiusa, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Joseph Thalken.

Guettel won Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his score to The Light in the Piazza, and received and Obie Award and Drama Desk nominations for his music and lyrics to Floyd Collins. Foley wrote music and lyrics for The Hidden Sky, which earned him an NEA grant, the Richard Rodgers Award, the Stephen Sondheim Award, and a Jonathan Larson Foundation grant. Michelson’s work includes Still Life With Toe Shoes and Hotel Sarajevo.

Miller wrote the musical The Burnt Part Boys with Nathan Tysen, which will be presented at Playwrights Horizons in spring 2010. Richards’s works include Charlie Crosses the Nation an opera in a Jazz idiom, A Thousand Words Come to Mind, and A Star Across the Ocean.

For more information, visit www.signature-theatre.org.