NYMF 2009 Full Productions
In order
to grow we must confront our demons... An eccentric therapist is on the brink
of falling in love for the first time in years when a neurotic rock musician
comes to call. Dream play? Ghost story? Romantic comedy? Gothic
Tragedy? Jonathan Spottiswoode and his cult band, Spottiswoode & His
Enemies, bring a sexy expressionist twist to Don Giovanni that is tinged with
jazz, blues, rock, gospel, classical and punk. They say love is a game – so who
can you blame for playing?
Please note that this show may contain nudity and/or graphic adult content.
Schedule: Oct 4th, 8:00 pm, Oct 7th, 5:00 pm, Oct 12th, 9:00 pm, Oct 13th, 4:30 pm, Oct 15th, 8:00 pm, Oct 17th, 1:00 pm at TBG Theater
With raw honesty and dark wit, a musician explores destiny, faith, forgiveness...and the ties that bind.
Singer/songwriter Ned Massey’s career began right out of college when he was discovered by legendary talent scout John Hammond. Although described by Hammond as "the finest talent since Dylan and Springsteen," that early promise went largely unfulfilled. Massey was recording his debut album when Hammond suffered a stroke from which he never recovered.
Schedule: Sep 28th, 8:00 pm, Sep 29th, 1:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 5:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 9:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 1:00 pm, Oct 6th, 8:00 pm at TBG Theater
Fellowship!, the hilarious musical parody of The Fellowship of the Ring, follows all the events of Tolkien's epic adventure with one big difference: This time it's funny! Barefooted, tap-dancing Hobbits! A rocking guitar solo by the heir of Gondor! The Balrog, a dark creature of shadow and flame, performing a sequin-studded cabaret number! And much more! So fly, you fools... to Fellowship!
WINNER - 2010 SATURN AWARD
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Schedule: Oct 7th, 8:00 pm, Oct 8th, 10:30 pm, Oct 10th, 9:00 pm, Oct 13th, 8:00 pm, Oct 16th, 8:00 pm, Oct 17th, 1:00 pm at American Theatre of Actors (Chernuchin)
Tap virtuoso and chronic womanizer “Toes” Macgrath and relationship-tormented pianist “Fingers” St. Claire have less than two weeks to create a song and dance show about Love for a big audition with a Broadway producer. But when triple-threat Molly Molloy joins them to play their ingénue, their plans spiral out of control as real romantic entanglements turn the creative process upside down. It’s a modern day Singin’ in the Rain!
Schedule: Oct 7th, 8:00 pm, Oct 9th, 4:30 pm, Oct 12th, 4:30 pm, Oct 13th, 8:00 pm, Oct 15th, 8:00 pm, Oct 16th, 1:00 pm, Oct 17th, 4:30 pm at Urban Stages
A very scientific princess meets a frog she is determined to turn into a prince – with the assistance of a troupe of Celestial Tap-Dancing Taoist Masters. In this saucy ‘n’ swingin’ new musical, will Clementine get the Prince of her dreams, or will she find herself in bed with just another horny toad? It’s a bedtime story with a bawdy twist! Based on the Stephen Mitchell novella The Frog Prince.
Schedule: Sep 30th, 8:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 7:30 pm, Oct 4th, 9:00 pm, Oct 6th, 5:00 pm, Oct 10th, 7:30 pm, Oct 11th, 1:00 pm at The Theater at St. Clements
Book by William Hauptman; Music and Lyrics by Jim Wann
Spring, 1869: one-armed Civil War hero John Wesley Powell seeks to unite a torn nation with an unprecedented expedition through the Grand Canyon. Powell and his brother Walter, an Andersonville POW survivor, sail down the perilous Colorado River with a crew of war veterans, while his wife Emma Dean becomes ensnared in expansionist politics. What lies in the undiscovered land ahead? With a score incorporating bluegrass, country, folk, and environmental elements, The Great Unknown is an American musical adventure.
Schedule: Oct 5th, 8:00 pm, Oct 6th, 1:00 pm, Oct 10th, 3:00 pm, Oct 13th, 5:00 pm, Oct 15th, 9:00 pm, Oct 16th, 1:00 pm at The Theater at St. Clements
The History Of War is spun from the imagination of a 12 year old boy - a megalomaniac in training. As he struggles with homework assignments and peculiar visions, he conjures up seven of the most famous tyrants of all time. They did horrible things. He wants to do horrible things. His parents are worried. ...and everybody sings! ... well, almost everybody. Reality and pathology neatly converge in this terrifyingly subversive new musical.
Schedule: Oct 8th, 7:00 pm, Oct 9th, 1:00 pm, Oct 12th, 8:00 pm, Oct 15th, 7:00 pm, Oct 16th, 1:00 pm, Oct 16th, 5:00 pm at American Theatre of Actors (Chernuchin)
Book, Music and Lyrics by Keith Varney
Aspiring writer Keith has been a temp in a wacky office’s soul crushing cubicle for six years. When an evil nemesis emerges to squash his coffee-stained hopes and dreams, Keith makes a decision that causes him to get summarily fired… with security escorts and everything! Naturally he retaliates by writing a musical. Based on a true-ish story. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Schedule: Oct 1st, 8:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 1:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 5:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 9:00 pm, Oct 7th, 1:00 pm, Oct 10th, 5:00 pm at TBG Theater
When the noisy buzz of progressive deafness steals away his songs, Jay becomes one pissed-off composer. As Jay struggles to hold onto the disappearing notes, can his wife and son get him to strive for something other than fame or death? A wild pop-rock-rap-dance-classical-disco-experimental-sign language-multimedia mash-up, Jay Alan Zimmerman's Incredibly Deaf Musical is the heartwarming, booty-shaking autobiography of a man trying everything he can to keep the music flying.
Schedule: Sep 30th, 8:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 5:00 pm, Oct 4th, 1:00 pm, Oct 8th, 9:00 pm, Oct 9th, 9:00 pm, Oct 10th, 1:00 pm at The Duke on 42nd
Based on the "Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel" radio series by Nat Perrin, Arthur Sheekman, George Oppenheimer, and Tom McKnight
Who can forget Groucho, Chico and Harpo, those three mirth-makers of the silver screen? No one, that's who! But when the Marx Brothers are let loose in an unsuspecting radio studio, the airwaves will never be safe for detergent commercials again! Featuring all new songs and bursting with mayhem, it’s a laugh-filled, tune-filled, lunacy-filled extravaganza!
Schedule: Sep 30th, 8:00 pm, Oct 1st, 1:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 1:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 8:00 pm, Oct 6th, 8:00 pm, Oct 9th, 8:00 pm, Oct 12th, 8:00 pm at Urban Stages
What do you get when a straight white male from Canada discovers that his mother's a lesbian? A hilarious and heartfelt story that celebrates love in all its forms! The hit of the 2009 Toronto Fringe, My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding is based on a true story that will make you laugh, cry and realize that nothing's impossible.
Schedule: Oct 5th, 8:00 pm, Oct 6th, 1:00 pm, Oct 10th, 1:00 pm, Oct 13th, 1:00 pm, Oct 14th, 8:00 pm, Oct 16th, 9:00 pm at TBG Theater
When Max and his boyfriend Calder find themselves in a hospital awaiting Calder’s heart transplant, the nurse supplies them with a mind-altering pill that slows time, turning one minute into one hour. Fueled by a sweeping contemporary score, Nighttime Traffic follows three characters through a world of thumping music, altered perceptions, and unanticipated inspiration as they spin minutes into moments and search for solace in unsettling times.
Schedule: Sep 28th, 8:00 pm, Sep 29th, 4:30 pm, Sep 29th, 8:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 8:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 1:00 pm, Oct 5th, 4:30 pm, Oct 10th, 1:00 pm at Urban Stages
When 18-year old klutzy outcast, Kitty Katz, leaves her suburban gated community for the Ghetto Art School, she finds art’s underbelly to be both seamy and spectacular. With her new friends – an ultra-cool street artist and a kind-hearted boy-genius – Kitty forges through the school’s cutthroat and preposterous melée, yearning to be a true artist. Will she find fame? The ghost of Willem de Kooning? Or something real?
Schedule: Sep 30th, 8:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 5:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 9:00 pm, Oct 6th, 8:00 pm, Oct 10th, 5:00 pm, Oct 11th, 9:00 pm at American Theatre of Actors (Chernuchin)
Based on the film Gazon Maudit
Pandora, a suburban housewife, and her serial-philanderer husband, Oliver, have their love and lives turned upside down the day that Mona, a Lesbian-American handywoman, walks through their door. In this raucous, contemporary sex farce, Mona and Oliver face off in a fight to win the greatest prize of all, the love of the beautiful Pandora.
Schedule: Oct 8th, 8:00 pm, Oct 9th, 1:00 pm, Oct 11th, 5:00 pm, Oct 13th, 9:00 pm, Oct 14th, 9:00 pm, Oct 16th, 5:00 pm at The Theater at St. Clements
Music by Michelangelo Sosnowitz
Directed and Choreographed by Matthew Neff
The busy gray city streets disappear as a homeless man conjures a fantasy world where he becomes a carnival barker. All eyes are on him as he presents a trio of dolls: The Soldier, The Ballerina and The Jester, Petrouchka. As he commands their tale of love and jealousy to unfold, reality and make-believe blur tragically in this dramatic dance musical based on a 1911 Ballet Russe production.
Schedule: Oct 7th, 8:00 pm, Oct 8th, 1:00 pm, Oct 9th, 5:00 pm at The Duke on 42nd
Lower Manhattan, 1876. Join Dick as he rises from penniless bootblack to budding entrepreneur with a little bit of luck, a little bit of charm, and a whole lot of hard work. Based on Horatio Alger’s beloved tale, Dick’s adventures bring him face to face with scheming ex-convicts, vicious comic villains, kind benefactors, and a host of colorful characters in this rags-to-riches romp for the whole family.
Schedule: Oct 7th, 8:00 pm, Oct 9th, 5:00 pm, Oct 11th, 9:00 pm, Oct 15th, 1:00 pm, Oct 16th, 9:00 pm, Oct 17th, 3:00 pm at The Theater at St. Clements
International pop phenomenon The Symphonic Sensations rose from small town high school show choir to big time show biz success with an explosion of tight harmonies and jazz hands. As the music bio TV documentary “Beyond the Façade” follows their thrilling path to fame and adoration by millions, the highs and lows of celebrity are exposed in this musical comedy exploration of America’s favorite extracurricular activity.
Schedule: Sep 28th, 8:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 1:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 5:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 9:00 pm, Oct 9th, 5:00 pm, Oct 11th, 5:00 pm at American Theatre of Actors (Chernuchin)
Korean military life bites when you’re at the bottom of the boot camp totem pole. Things are looking up for one wily private, however, who’s buttered up his bullying superior by convincing a buddy back home to pose as the sergeant’s flirty new female pen pal. But when the friend’s own dream girl is drawn into the deception, the ruse snowballs into a mess of heart-breaking proportions. It's a rambunctious comedy about mistaken identities, love, and the lengths to which a soldier will go for an extra ration of Choco-pie!
The 2010 Selection of NYMF’s Production Exchange with the Daegu International Musical Festival, presented in Korean with English supertitles
Schedule: Sep 29th, 8:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 9:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 9:00 pm, Oct 4th, 5:00 pm, Oct 4th, 9:00 pm, Oct 6th, 9:00 pm at The Duke on 42nd
Book by Sara Cooper
Locked inside the Tenth Floor, the Miami-Dade Correctional Facility’s juvenile division, 16-year-old Victor Alvarez escapes into fantasy to escape the harsh realities of prison and his home life. Fueled by a contemporary rock, hip hop, and salsa-influenced score, this high-energy musical follows Victor as he struggles to come to terms with both the truth of his present and the ramifications of his past.
Please note that this show contains strong language and adult themes.
Schedule: Sep 27th, 8:00 pm, Sep 29th, 8:00 pm, Oct 1st, 7:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 1:00 pm, Oct 9th, 9:00 pm, Oct 10th, 1:00 pm at American Theatre of Actors (Chernuchin)
based on Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Tess’s spirited and innocent life unravels when her impoverished family’s desperate need to connect to a once mighty bloodline results in an act of violence and shame. Desired by two men, forsaken by Victorian society, and burdened by secrets and duty, Thomas Hardy’s dark heroine struggles to remain pure in a stained world as she is pulled towards her ultimate fate.
Schedule: Sep 29th, 8:00 pm, Oct 1st, 9:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 1:00 pm, Oct 3rd, 3:00 pm, Oct 4th, 5:00 pm, Oct 9th, 9:00 pm at The Theater at St. Clements
Music and Lyrics by Karen Bishko
Meet Leah. She’s a songwriter who’s inappropriate, talented, obsessed, loyal, habitually unrequited in love… and who can’t stop eating cake! When her best friend suggests she needs psychological help, Leah marches into a handsome therapist’s office only to discover she’s still looking for love in all the wrong places. Forced to revisit the hilarious and heartbreaking dysfunction of her past, one woman’s quest to find romance becomes a journey to find herself.
Schedule: Sep 27th, 8:00 pm, Sep 29th, 1:00 pm, Oct 1st, 8:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 4:30 pm, Oct 3rd, 4:30 pm, Oct 5th, 8:00 pm, Oct 6th, 1:00 pm at Urban Stages
This sweeping portrait of Dorothea Lange examines an artist’s journey as complex as the history captured in her work. Best known as the photographer behind the iconic Depression Era image “Migrant Mother,” Dorothea fights for the lives of the people she photographs, while constantly torn between the demanding roles of wife, mother, and artist. A woman ahead of her time, living during a tumultuous period in American history, will her relentless devotion to her subjects undermine all hope of keeping her world in balance?
Schedule: Sep 27th, 8:00 pm, Sep 28th, 9:00 pm, Oct 1st, 1:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 5:00 pm, Oct 2nd, 9:00 pm, Oct 6th, 9:00 pm at The Theater at St. Clements
Adrift in their lives, two friends reconnect after ten years and set out to fulfill a childhood promise: to hike the Appalachian Trail together from beginning to end. Over the six month, 2000 mile journey, past and present intertwine as the two face both the elements and the ghosts that haunt their memories. As they sift through the ashes of their tumultuous history, a bond of brotherhood struggles to be reborn.
Schedule: Oct 8th, 8:00 pm, Oct 9th, 1:00 pm, Oct 10th, 9:00 pm, Oct 12th, 5:00 pm, Oct 14th, 4:30 pm, Oct 16th, 5:00 pm at TBG Theater
George, unofficial mayor of 132nd Street and a self-proclaimed expert on matters of the heart, believes love should never be taken seriously. He finally meets his match when he befriends a down-on-her-luck stranger who is not what she seems. A funny and heartfelt look at the romantic travails of three couples learning about love in 1930's Harlem, this musical features a tuneful and jazzy period score by Harlem Renaissance songwriter J.C. Johnson, a colleague of artists such as Fats Waller, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Billie Holiday.
Schedule: Oct 11th, 8:00 pm, Oct 12th, 1:00 pm, Oct 13th, 8:00 pm, Oct 15th, 4:30 pm, Oct 16th, 1:00 pm, Oct 17th, 4:30 pm at TBG Theater
Josh Cohen hates Valentine’s Day. This year is no exception: he’s unlucky in love, working a job he hates, and his apartment just got robbed of everything except a Neil Diamond CD. But when an unexpected treasure arrives in his mailbox, he’s forced to confront his biggest enemy: his own conscience. Woven with songs in the style of Neil Diamond, V-Day is about doing the right thing, even when it sucks.
Schedule: Oct 4th, 8:00 pm, Oct 5th, 1:00 pm, Oct 6th, 4:30 pm, Oct 8th, 8:00 pm, Oct 9th, 1:00 pm, Oct 10th, 4:30 pm, Oct 10th, 8:00 pm at Urban Stages
Tea Parties, oil spills, death panels...and that's just the opening statements! VOTE FOR ME is a musicalized Presidential debate where you pick the winner. Hum along as the candidates dance and sing their way through the three-ring circus of American politics, and cast your vote to help determine the outcome of the show--and the future of America! The writers of COLLEGE The Musical (NYMF 2008) return to the festival with this world-premiere political spoof.
Schedule: Oct 11th, 8:00 pm, Oct 12th, 1:00 pm, Oct 14th, 8:00 pm, Oct 15th, 4:30 pm, Oct 16th, 4:30 pm, Oct 16th, 8:00 pm, Oct 17th, 1:00 pm at Urban Stages
Anthony Rapp presents his turbulent journey through the convergence of two life-changing events: the early days of Rent – including the untimely passing of Jonathan Larson – and the illness and death of his own mother. Based on his New York Times best-selling memoir, Rapp uses a mix of original music and songs by R.E.M. and Larson in a stunning one-man show about grief, hope, and triumph.
Schedule: Sep 27th, 8:00 pm, Sep 29th, 5:00 pm, Sep 29th, 9:00 pm, Sep 30th, 1:00 pm, Sep 30th, 8:00 pm, Oct 6th, 4:30 pm, Oct 7th, 8:30 pm, Oct 7th, 11:00 pm, Oct 9th, 5:00 pm, Oct 9th, 9:00 pm at TBG Theater
