Michael Rubinoff, Producing Artistic Director of Sheridan College’s Canadian Music Theatre Project (CMTP), is proud to announce the lineup of new musicals that will be workshopped in September by Sheridan’s Honours Bachelor of Music Theatre Performance Class of 2019.
Since the program’s inception in 2011, 19 shows have been incubated and continue their development in various stages. Five of these shows have enjoyed professional premieres, including Marathon of Hope, Prom Queen, Rumspringa Break!, The Theory of Relativity, and Come From Away, which opened on Broadway in 2017, receiving a Tony Award® for Best Direction and a nomination for Best Musical.
“The CMTP is an international centre of excellence for the development of new musicals in Canada. We have established a supportive environment where writers and students have the opportunity to collaborate and take risks in order to create new works,” says Rubinoff.
The workshops will culminate in 45-minute staged readings that will take place at the CMTP Festival of New Musicals from October 12 – 14, 2018.
Four new musicals
ERIK WITH A K
Book, Music & Lyrics: Jay Turvey and Paul Sportelli
Director: Sarah Kitz
Montmartre, Paris. 1880s.The infamous bohemian nightclub, Le Chat Noir. The inhabitants and frequenters: La Goulue, cancan dancer and bon vivant, Suzanne Valadon, painter and artist’s model, composer Claude Debussy, and musical iconoclast Erik Satie. A time of tumultuous change in the arts. Some led the charge. Some went with the flow. Some resisted. Some fell in love along the way. It was a party.
IN REAL LIFE
Book & Lyrics: Nick Green
Music & Lyrics: Kevin Wong
Director: Ali Joy Johnson
Music Director: Chris Barillaro
Every day, technology is becoming more a part of the way that we communicate, explore our identities, and learn about the world. As it continues to advance, technology breaks down boundaries, bringing us closer together in spite of geographical divides. That said, these very screens that are bringing us together are simultaneously pulling us apart. In Real Life is a dystopian coming-of-age story about a young woman and man on opposite sides of the world trying to find a true connection in an increasingly technological world.
KELLY V. KELLY
Book: Sara Farb
Music & Lyrics: Britta Johnson
Music Director: Joseph Tritt
One day your daughter is a normal, sweet teenager; the next, she's running off with a tango pirate. What do you do about it? Have her arrested. Obviously. A musical inspired by true events from 1915, when things were pretty weird.
Kelly V. Kelly is being developed in partnership with the Musical Stage Company
STARS OF MARS
Book and Lyrics: Ashley Botting
Music and Lyrics: Daniel Abrahamson
Director: Steven Gallagher
Inside the first human colony on Mars, a hopeless amateur theatre troupe of astronauts, scientists, and pioneers stage a musical satire of Earth today to teach the first human born a Martian about the home they've all left behind. Stars of Mars is a new musical comedy about family, humanity, and the rocket science required to put on a show in space.
Additional members of the creative teams will be announced at a future date.
