Adam Guettel, composer and lyricist best known for The Light in the Piazza, moderates the latest installment of the original series Behind the Music-al at 92YTribeca for an evening of song and conversation about the role of the “I Want Song” in contemporary musical theater.
Joining Adam are some of the brightest up-and-coming musical theater composers: Ewalt & Walker (Bromance: The Dudesical), Michael Holland (Hurricane) and Julia Meinwald and Gordon Leary (Pregnancy Pact in NAMT).
How are emerging composers using songs to establish a character? How do new styles of storytelling incorporate old conventions? How do you tell the world what you want? Learn how songwriting teams collaborate, hear exclusive new songs performed by some of Broadway's hottest young stars and get the back-story on your favorite musical numbers. Behind the Music-al lets you in on the process of putting together tomorrow's next big hit!
Tickets: $15
Brief Bios
Michael Holland is the orchestrator and vocal arranger for the current Broadway revival of Godspell. He is also the composer/lyricist of Hurricane (NYMF 2009; in development), Believe in Me…a Bigfoot musical (fringeNYC 2004), Live! Under Broadway (fringeNYC 2007), Times Square Centennial Celebration (BC/EFA & Times Sq Assoc., 2006) and Mikey Writes It! (2002 MAC Award: Best Revue). He has provided Incidental music for the Alley Theatre, Old Globe, Playwrights Horizons, Dallas Theatre Center, CO Shakespeare, Juilliard and NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts. Michael’s recordings include The Maury Yeston Songbook (PS classics) and 4 solo CDs and he has been a performer and musical director of the multi-award winning NYC cabaret duo Gashole! since 2001.
Adam Guettel is a composer/lyricist living in New York. His musical The Light in the Piazza received six 2005 Tony Awards and five Drama Desk Awards. Adam's other works include Floyd Collins, Love's Fire, a collaboration with John Guare for The Acting Company, and Saturn Returns recorded by Nonesuch Records under the title Myths And Hymns. Adam has taught master classes and seminars in musical theatre performance and songwriting at Yale University, Princeton University, New York University, Emerson College, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University and many others.
Gordon Leary and Julia Meinwald met at NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where they both earned MFA's in 2007. They began developing their musical Pregnancy Pact as 2009-2010 Dramatists Guild Musical Theatre Fellows.The piece played two sold-out concerts at Ars Nova and received the Weston Playhouse 2011 New Musical Award, which included a demo recording with Kurt Deutsch of Sh-K-Boom and Ghostlight Records. Pregnancy Pact was further developed at the Yale Institute for Musical Theatre under the direction of Mark Brokaw, and was seen in NAMT's 2011 fall Festival of New Musicals. Gordon and Julia's one-act musical, Disappeared, has been seen at Prospect Theatre Company's Dark Nights Series and the 2009 Lincoln Center Director's Lab. One Man Show, a dance musical commissioned by choreographer John Heginbotham, premiered in the 2010 DanceNOW [NYC] Dancemopolitan series at Joe's Pub.
Kyle Ewalt and Michael I. Walker are co-creators of Behind the Music-al with 92YTribeca. Most recently, their show Separate: Battle Songs of Youth was seen at Ars Nova, and their latest musical, Bromance: the Dudesical, was shown at Caroline's on Broadway. Together, they have completed four musicals and their music has been seen around NYC and the country, notably at 92YTribeca, Joe's Pub and Playwrights Horizons. Kyle studied songwriting at Berklee College of Music and Michael received his bachelor's degree from Yale and his master's degree from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and King's College in London. Michael's play, Letter from Algeria, just completed an Off-Broadway run at the Abgindon.