New Musicals Australia Launched to Foster Original Works

According to a recent article by AussieTheatre.com, with the support of the Australia Council Music Board and Century Venues, a new initiative dedicated to the production of original Australian musical theatre has been launched in Sydney called New Musicals Australia.

New Musicals Australia has been founded in order to provide creators of new musicals with professional workshopping opportunities which will help their work to be developed and presented. This model mirrors the processes witnessed in the US and UK, allowing writers and composers to have their scripts and songs workshopped and presented to industry peers, industry leaders and audiences.

"The future of Australian musical theatre is something that is of critical importance to me, and many working in the theatre industry," said the director of New Musicals Australia, Kris Stewart in the article.

"I think it's clear that there have been a number of structural gaps and issues in the sector of new music theatre development in Australia, and this is a chance to throw talent and resources at getting more musicals off the ground."

Kris Stewart is the founding director of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), the world's largest annual musical theatre event. Here, he presented more than 130 musicals and developed shows like Altar Boyz and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal. Stewart was one the Broadway producers of [title of show], and currently serves as Resident Director of the musical Wicked in Australia for the Gordon/Frost Organizational, as well as festival director for the inaugural Sydney Fringe, which opens in September 2010.

According to the article, "New Musicals Australia has three key workshop initiatives. They are The Musical Snapshot, which presents a 20 to 40 minute extract of the musical in concert, alongside other new works, allowing the creative team to receive professional feedback and gauge a general audience response. The Developmental Reading sees a new work rehearsed and performed in concert, and the Workshop Presentation allows a musical to be rehearsed and performed book-down with staging and some production elements."

New Musicals Australia will accept submissions year-round with deadlines for individual presentation seasons. The deadline for the upcoming presentation season is August 31. Submissions are read by an evaluation team that consists of NMA's director, its artistic advisors and members of the Australia Council's Music Board.

For more information on New Musicals Australia visit www.newmusicals.com.au.

For the original article, click here.