NYMF report 2019
The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) is the largest and most important musical theatre festival in the world. This year it features ten mainstage productions, ten concerts and ten readings of new musicals. In 16 years, NYMF has presented 475 shows – imagine that! And four have opened on Broadway!
As you know, NYMF has a special place in my heart. That is where the musical my company commissioned and I helped develop played in 2017 under the name of NUMBERS NERDS. That musical is now being licensed by Theatrical Rights Worldwide under the title 57th NATIONAL MATHLETE SUM-IT.
This year I was fortunate enough to see some great shows at NYMF. Here are some of my favorites:
BURIED – A man and a woman have a first date and they discover something…they are both serial killers! What a love story! This show was so well directed, the music – almost haunting – and the leading woman just knocked my socks off.
LADYSHIP – an early favorite of many musical theatre lovers, this new musical is the story of how women were convicted (some falsely) of small crimes and then sentenced to a horrific journey to populate the newly established Australia. The score is contemporary pop by Linda and Laura Good from the band The Twigs. But what I loved most about the show was how well the set was designed and used, and again….the performers. Especially the young woman playing Mary Reed – this girl had a terrific voice, a magnetic stage presence and, from the screams coming from the audience, a huge following.
BLACK HOLE WEDDING – I must confess I was smitten with this show because it had Broadway Tony Award winning producers Ben Simpson and Joe Longthorne as their general managers. Slick, fast moving, and a bit absurd, and an all-star cast with dozens of Broadway credits between them – this show did not disappoint.
NYMF runs till August 4 – wish I could have seen my colleague’s TILL – written by the talented Leo Schwartz – it has made all of the top lists – and is choreographed by a long- time colleague of mine Kenny Ingram.
Larry Little
Producer
