Goodspeed's 7th Annual Festival of New Artists

The Seventh Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Artists, produced by Goodspeed Musicals’ Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre, kicks off its much anticipated three day festival of brand new works on Friday, January 13, at the  with a staged reading of the soulful musical Harmony, Kansas. 

On Saturday, January 14, Not Wanted on the Voyage from the team who wrote the Goodspeed to Broadway tuner The Story of My Life debuts. On the final day of the festival, the engaging musical The Dogs of Pripyat will be presented. Several special events will round out this exciting weekend. 

Tickets are available at theGoodspeed Box Office or by calling 860.873.8668 or online at www.goodspeed.org. Tickets are $15 each for one show, $10 each for students. This year’s festival is sponsored in part by the Noel Coward Foundation, lead oorporate sponsor RisCassi & Davis, P.C. and The Adolph and Ruth Schnurmacher Foundation, Inc.

The Festival Weekend Package is currently SOLD OUT. Call the box office for information on individual even tickets.

Goodspeed Opera House tours will be offered throughout the weekend.

“The Seventh Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Artists, with its expanded programs and wonderful new talents, highlights our commitment to developing new musicals,” said Michael P. Price, Executive Director ofGoodspeed Musicals. 

“It’s thrilling for us to see the Goodspeed campus bustling in wintertime. Our community comes alive when hundreds of musical theatre fans from around the country join the best and brightest new writers and performers as they work together to create the future of musical theatre,” he added.

Created in 2002, Goodspeed’s Showalter Center inspires and nurtures musical theatre artists and students by providing a unique and comprehensive range of training and educational programs to serve both the national and local academic communities. 

The New Artists program is being held throughout the Goodspeed campus January 3 – 15, 2012. During the first week of the program, three teams of writers and composers will dedicate their time to further writing and composing their musicals in development. In the second week, senior students from The Hartt School and Boston Conservatory will join them for rehearsals and continued development of the material. 

The New Artists program culminates with Goodspeed’s Festival of New Artists to showcase staged readings of the new musicals developed during the New Artists Program, one of the Showalter Center’s major endeavors.  It offers new and emerging artists the rare opportunity to thoroughly work on their projects with the help of Goodspeed’s renowned resources and artistic environment, while affording senior students from prominent conservatory programs real-world experience in new musical development and performing new musicals. 

Dedicated to the preservation and advancement of musical theatre, Goodspeed Musicals produces three musicals each season at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn., and additional works at The Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, Conn., which was opened in 1984 for the development of new musicals.  The first regional theatre to receive two Tony Awards (for outstanding achievement), Goodspeedalso maintains The Scherer Library of Musical Theatre and The Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre.  Goodspeed gratefully acknowledges the support of the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.  

Submitted by Press Release