The National Alliance for Musical Theatre has two days at New World Stages, October 22–23, and eight new musicals to show the industry in 45 minutes apiece. A first wave of casting puts Ephraim Sykes, Samantha Pauly, Christiani Pitts and Kay Sibal among the performers.
A committee of 21 theater professionals picked the eight titles from 518 submissions. Each gets a concert-style staged reading in front of producers, artistic directors, presenters and investors from regional theater, Broadway, music and screen. This is the festival's 38th edition, at 340 West 50th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.
The eight musicals
- Black Girl in Paris – book and lyrics by AriDy Nox, music by Jacinth Greywoode, directed by Zhailon Levingston. Sally Hemings, fourteen and enslaved, lands in Paris as the French Revolution nears and has to weigh what freedom would cost her.
- BLUDLINE: A Hip-Hop Odyssey – book, music and lyrics by Fermin Suero, Jr. and Pete White, directed by MONET. Odysseus fights his way home over a live hip-hop and R&B score while his son Telemachus grows up without him. It won the 2026 Richard Rodgers Award.
- The (Disaster) Marathon of 1904 – book by Tyler Joseph Ellis, music and lyrics by Jacob Ryan Smith and Daniel Mertzlufft, directed by JuJu Jaworski. A comedy about the real and famously chaotic Olympic marathon of 1904, narrated by the ancient runner Pheidippides.
- Fouad of Nazareth – book, music and lyrics by Fouad Dakwar, directed by Sivan Battat. A pop-punk dark comedy, drawn from a true story, about a Palestinian teenager from New York sorting out his identity at a summer camp in the Holy Land.
- How to Play the Cello (Until You Don't) – book, music and lyrics by Benjamin Emory Larson, directed by Shelley Butler. A one-act piece for a single actress, loosely based on the cellist Jacqueline du Pré, whose career multiple sclerosis cut short in her thirties.
- Love of a Lifetime – book, music and lyrics by Lara Filip, directed by Alan Muraoka. A fond send-up of the made-for-TV holiday movie, centered on a woman who finds herself trapped inside one.
- The Ramayan – book, music and lyrics by Manik Choksi, directed by Liz Carlson. India's ancient epic retold as an alt-folk rock opera, developed over several years with Ars Nova.
- Sunwatcher – book and lyrics by Isabella Dawis, music by Tidtaya Sinutoke, additional music by Dawis, directed by Karla Puno Garcia. In Tokyo in 1944, under American bombing, a young woman sets out to become an astronomer. It is inspired by the real Hisako Koyama.
Who is in the company
The initial casting, by Michael Cassara, also includes Joan Almedilla, Leanne J. Antonio, Brandon Mel Borkowsky, Alaman Diadhiou, Jared Howelton, MaryAnn Hu, Keziah John-Paul, Rajané Katurah, Marina Kondo, Rohan Kymal, JD Mollison, Andrew Mueller, Mia Pak, Heath Saunders, Saum Seyed, Kuhoo Verma, Alex Weisman, Alex Wyse and Kendyl Sayuri Yokoyama. Their credits take in Six, Hamilton, The Book of Mormon, The Lion King, MJ The Musical and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. NAMT has not yet said who is in which show, and final casting is still to be announced.
The music directors are Christie Chiles Twillie, John Yun, Garret Healey, Ben Covello, Andrea Grody, Jo Ann Daugherty and Sujin Kim-Ramsey, with Rona Siddiqui as music supervisor on The Ramayan.
Around the readings
The Musical Roadtrip strand brings in work from four NAMT member programs: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's New Works Festival in Palo Alto, the Winter Park Playhouse's Florida Festival of New Musicals, the Baldwin Wallace Musical Theatre New Musicals Incubator in Berea, Ohio, and the CMU Center for New Work in Pittsburgh. A Songwriters Showcase hosted by LJ Strunsky of The Ira & Leonore Gershwin Philanthropic Fund marks the launch of the new Ira Gershwin Concept Grants, with songs from All the Answers, Bandit Queen and Letters To The President and live interviews with their writers.
The track record is why the room fills. NAMT counts more than 300 musicals through the festival since it began and says over 90% went on to further readings, productions, licensing or recordings. Come From Away, The Drowsy Chaperone, Lempicka and Thoroughly Modern Millie all passed through it.
Presentations run Thursday, October 22, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Friday, October 23, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is an industry event, with registration at namt.org/festival, but NAMT also offers free passes to the general public, seated first come, first served once other pass holders are in.
