The Lied Center for Performing Arts is hosting Nebraska's first-ever ASCAP New Musical Theatre Workshop and Festival Sept. 10-12.
The festival is free and open to the public. Students, faculty and community members are encouraged to register for the festival events to witness the creative process first hand and join in this special celebration of new musical theatre as it unfolds on the UNL campus.
A typically bi-annual event held in New York and Los Angeles, the workshop highlights some of the greatest up and coming musicals in the country. After several months of dreaming, planning and relationship building, the Lied Center was been selected to host a third workshop. One or more of the shows featured at the workshop has a chance to become a new Broadway smash hit.
One-hundred submissions were received from hopeful composers and playwrights across the country. Three shows were selected for the workshop by a panel of local and national musical theatre professionals. Under the direction of Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts faculty member Alisa Belflower and Johnny Carson School alumnus Becky Key Boesen, these shows will be performed as staged readings during the workshop.
Performing arts students and alumni are cast in the staged readings, helping to bring these brand new shows to life. Following each performance, the new shows will be discussed and critiqued by a team of Broadway professionals, who will be working alongside Hixson-Lied students during the week of the workshop, including Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin, the composer and lyricist of Broadway’s "Elf" and "The Wedding Singer," as well as celebrated Broadway and television star Karen Morrow.
The shows chosen for the workshop are "Crossing Over" by Stephanie Salzman and Deborah Brevoort, "Cross That River" by Allan Harris and Pat Harris and "Threads" by Michael McLean.
"Crossing Over" begins in the world of Amish hymn and ends in the world of Hip Hop, R & B and Pop. It centers around a young Amish woman as she embarks on Rumspringa, the time when Amish teenagers are released from the bonds of their daily life and allowed to enter into mainstream society.
"Cross That River" is the story of Blue, a Louisiana slave who steals his master’s prize stallion and rides west to freedom, after witnessing the selling and brutal whipping of his father.
"Threads" is a musical about women and clothes and what holds them together. A grandfather’s passionate desire to fill his granddaughter’s wardrobe throughout her life with perfect outfits, reveals that people are so much more than what they wear.
In addition to the staged reading workshop, the Lied Center is offering free master classes and a cabaret-style concert on the Main Stage as part of a three-day festival. This Grow-A-Show Festival runs in tandem with the workshop and celebrates the Nebraskan spirit of nurture and growth as it meets the future of Broadway musical theatre. Ideas are spread, dreams are planted and new shows bloom at the Lied Center.
Masterclasses led by Morrow, Sklar and Beguelin provide one-on-one opportunities for students and the public to work “hands on” with these Broadway greats.
The cabaret event, titled "Hello, Broadway!" takes place Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 7:30 p.m. and features the work of Sklar and Beguelin as performed by Karen Morrow and a selected group of student singers. Adding to the festivities are nationally renowned jazz vocalist Jackie Allen and Associate Professor of Double Bass and Jazz Studies Hans Sturm. "Hello, Braodway!" is directed by Alisa Belflower and hosted by Chad Beguelin with pianists Matthew Sklar and Kurt Knecht.
The ASCAP New Musical Theatre Festival is made possible with generous support from the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, Hixson-Lied Endowment, UNL Arts and Humanities Research Enhancement Program and ASCAP.
For the full schedule and to register, visit http://www.liedcenter.org.