2010 New York Musical Theatre Festival Begins

New York, New York- The New York Musical Theatre Festival begins this week in Manhattan, where for three weeks thirty new, original musicals will make their debut for New York audiences and theater professionals alike, and hope to find financial backing and interested producers as well as steer the musical theater market from the glittering, grand scale exposition that it once was, to a smaller, more intimate and relatable experience.
The festival, which began on a smaller scale in 1983, and was reincarnated as NYMF in the early 2000s, was at first a springboard for emerging and unknown composers, directors and actors, and is now a full fledged part of the theater community, with many of the shows being offered funding by producers for off-Broadway trial runs, and even some being catapulted into the lights of Broadway.
Many commercial hits of the last few years have made their premiere at New York Musical Theatre Festival, including major Off-Broadway hits like Altar Boyz, Yank! The Great American Trailer Park Musical and shows that have gone to thrive on Broadway like [Title of Show], and Next to Normal. Even the 2009 recipient of the NYMF ‘Best of the Fest’ award, a musical called Fat Camp, had a profitable run off-Broadway and is anticipating a spring 2011 premiere on Broadway proper.
Keith Varney, the creator, composer and star of the NYMF show I Got Fired- a semi-autobiographical sort-of-true Revenge Musical, premiering October 1st, attributes much of NYMF’s current popularity to the scaled back, simpler design of the shows and how that is a direct reaction to the latest economic recession, where audiences are looking to see, as well as pay for, less extravagance and more truth.
A seat in a Broadway theater averages $120, but that price is closer to $300 on a weekend, whereas a NYMF ticket costs $20. Many New Yorkers have learned to take advantage of this in the past years, finding that the shows are of the same quality. Emily Oakley, a 22 year old Brooklynite and intern at I Got Fired, said that she wanted to get involved in the festival after attending some shows last year. Emily sits on the ground with illustrated directions in her hands and pieces of an unassembled IKEA desk spread around her on the stage of the Borrow Theater on 36th Street, she says.,” I saw some really great, really raw shows, and every so often you got the feeling that you were witnessing not just a scene but the beginning of something, of a career or a show or a new way of doing things.” And Emily needed to get involved, which is why she is now gladly putting the puzzle of a desk together for the set of I Got Fired.
Varney says of recent success stories, like NYMF’s 2005 alumni Next to Normal, which tells the story, in a pop rock manner, of a disconnected family whose mother figure struggles with Bipolar disorder. Varney says, “This is the best kind of show because it has gained incredible success while still maintaining the general plot and design they had five years ago. Their set is bare and simple, the band is small and visible to the audience,’ Most importantly, Varney says, the plot is character driven, ‘there are no crazy polytechnics or costumes or effects, all the incredible moments are purely emotional, and what keeps people coming back is the reality of it, not the fantasy that people expected while attending the theater in the 1980s and 90s.” And the rawness seems to work, during the 2009 season Next to Normal was nominated for eleven Tony awards, and was the winner of three, celebrating it’s original score, orchestration and leading actress along with winning the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Having the audience relate to a show’s material, and being able to express, though musically and somewhat deprecatingly, what many people experience is exactly what Varney is hoping to do with I Got Fired. The basic plot of his story is being unceremoniously getting fired from a job he hated, and after the initial thrill the fear of what to do with his life begins to take over. In 2010, when layoffs are still rampant and one-time professionals with graduate degrees are finding themselves working up from the bottom yet again, it is a story that is sure to hit home with many audience members.
The goal of this year’s New York Musical Theatre Festival is to the same as always, to inspire and hopefully deliver an expensive, if not fun or even moving, night at the theatre.
Kiernan Norman