Theater Resources Unlimited How to Write a Musical That Works Part Two: Conflicts & Obstacles

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents the workshop How to Write a Musical That Works Part Two: Conflicts & Obstacles on Sunday February 23, 2020 from 10am to 6pm at Studios 150, 150 W. 46th Street, 7th floor, NYC. Submission deadline is Wednesday 2/12. E-mail  TRUStaff1@gmail.com or register online at https://truonline.org/events/feedback-workshop2-2020/.
 
This workshop is dedicated to fostering a conversation about musical theater structure not only for writers but also for producers, directors and everyone involved in the creation and production of new works. Submission fee is $10 for members, $20 for non-members. If accepted, fee will be applied to a participation fee of $100 ($80 for TRU members).
 
Those not selected will be invited and encouraged to attend the workshop as observers. The price is $55 ($35 for TRU members). We will be promoting this to writers, directors and producers, with the hope of generating a useful conversation to help us all develop the skills to create successful works for musical theater. The cost for non-participants to attend for the full day, to observe the presentations and be part of the discussions, is $55 ($35 for TRU members).
 
Find application as a writable PDF: https://truonline.org/events/feedback-workshop2-2020/ fill it out, and email to TRUPlaySubmissions@gmail.com to sign up. Submission fee is $10 for TRU members, $20 for non-members. Submission deadline Wednesday, February 12th.
 
**If accepted for presentation of 10-15 minutes including one song and scene, plus feedback, there will be a fee of $100 ($80 for TRU members), which includes 2 seats for the entire day workshop as well as your presentation slot. Space is limited, so any additional attendees from the musical team (including music director, additional collaborators and cast members) who wish to observe the entire workshop must reserve in advance and will be charged $25 per person.
 
Writers (or producers!) are invited to submit no more than 25 pages of a show you are working on. We want to see the section of your show in which conflict and obstacles arise – the plot complications – plus MP3s of the songs within only those pages.
 
Our professional panel of commercial producers, directors and writers will include: Ken Cerniglia, former dramaturg and literary manager Disney Theatrical Group; Cheryl Davis, Kleban and Larsen Award winning librettist and lyricist (Barnstormer), Audelco Award winning playwright (Maid’s Door); Nancy Golladay, literary consultant (NY Shakespeare Festival, O’Neill Conference, more), moderator of the BMI Librettists’ Workshop; Skip Kennon, composer/lyricist (Herringbone, Don Juan DeMarco, Time and Again), former artistic coordinator of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and teacher for two decades. Bob Ost, executive director of Theater Resources Unlimited, and TRU Literary Manager Cate Cammarata will facilitate.
In the workshop we will focus on three main aspects:
 
1) Songs that express differing points of view, or conflict;
2) “Turnaround Songs” in which a character changes his course of action;
3) The climactic moment (sometimes the first act finale) that drives us forward into the resolution (note: “resolution” will be in workshop #3).
 
Feedback Panel
 
Cate Cammarata (TRU Literary Manager) is a producer, director, dramaturg and writer in NYC and is the Associate Artistic Director for Rhymes Over Beats Hip Hop Theater Collective. Cate has producedThe Assignment off-Broadway andMy Father’s Daughter with Ursula Rucker at La Mama for Rhymes Over Beats. Regionally she produced My Life Is a Musical at Bay Street Theater and has directed many readings of new work in NYC. She is the Literary Manager for Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) and is the Director of Creative Development for MusicalWriters.com. Cate holds a BFA in Acting/Directing from Syracuse University and an MFA in Dramaturgy at SUNY Stony Brook, and teaches Theatre Arts at Baruch College. Her latest book, “Contemporary Monologues for a New Theater,” was listed as one of the Top Ten Books for theatre lovers by BroadwayDirect in 2018. catecammarata.com, createtheater.com
 
Cheryl Davis received the Kleban Award as a librettist for her musical
Barnstormer, (written with Douglas J. Cohen) about Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman flyer. The show received a Jonathan Larson Award through the Lark Play Development Center. Her play Maid’s Door received great reviews, won seven Audelco Awards, and was a finalist for the Francesca Primus Prize. Her play The Color of Justice (commissioned by Theatreworks/USA), received excellent reviews in the New York Times and Daily News, and tours regularly. Her musical Bridges, which was commissioned by the Berkeley Playhouse, received its world premiere in February 2016 to great reviews and three award nominations from the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. She received a Writers’ Guild Award for her work on “As the World Turns”, and was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award. Her work has been read and performed internationally, including at the Cleveland Play House, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the Kennedy Center. She is the General Counsel of the Authors Guild.
 
Nancy Golladay has served as a literary consultant with the New York Shakespeare Festival, Paul Sills, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Ellis Rabb, Warner Brothers Films, Punch Productions, the Nederlander Organization, Tenterfield Productions, the La Jolla Playhouse, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and Davenport Theatrical. Nancy was actively involved in the founding of the U.K.’s Book, Music, and Lyrics (BML) Workshop, an evolving group focused on the development of musical theatre writers and choreographers. She was an invited speaker at Mercury Musical Developments writers’ conference in London, and appeared on the original Dramatists Guild “Art of the Synopsis” panel in New York. Nancy has worked for many years on the Drama League, Drama Desk, and Tony-honored BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop as a member of the faculty and Advisory Committee. As Moderator of the Librettists Workshop, she has recently created a popular program of in-house table readings of its members’ new projects.
 
Skip Kennon was the overall Artistic Coordinator of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and the teacher of the first year there for two decades. He wrote the music for the one-man musical Herringbone (Playwrights Horizons – starring David Rounds, Hartford Stage – starring Joel Grey, Edinburgh Festival, Philadelphia’s Prince Music Theater, Chicago’s St. Nicholas Theater, 2007 season opener at Williamstown Theater Festival – starring B.D. Wong), the music for Here’s Our Girl (workshopped at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater), and the music and lyrics for the musical version of The Last Starfighter (Storm Theatre, Village Theatre Festival of New Musicals – summer 2006, New York Musical Theatre Festival readings – fall 2006), Blanco (Goodspeed Opera House at Chester, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, National Music Theater Network), Feathertop (WPA Theater, Pennsylvania Stage Co.), and Time and Again (Manhattan Theatre Club, San Diego’s Old Globe Theater, Eugene O’Neill Center National Music Theater Conference). Kennon also wrote the music and lyrics for the one-act musical Plaisir d’Amour (book by Terrence McNally), which was produced at New York’s Triangle Theater and seen in workshop at Circle Rep, as well as the music for the one-act musical Afternoon Tea (book & lyrics by Eduardo Machado), which was performed at Theater Row Theaters in 2005 by Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. He was a classical music critic at the Hollywood Reporter for five years.
 
Bob Ost While still a senior, his one-act Beast was produced by Bob Moss in the first season of Playwrights Horizons. He went on to write book, music and lyrics for the off-Broadway revue Everybody’s Gettin’ into the Act at the Actor’s Playhouse, and Finale!, Grand Prize winner in the 1990 American Musical Theater Festival Competition (presented at NAMT) and the 1992 New American Musical Writers Competition, and a finalist at the O’Neill Music Conference in 1989. More recently his musical Angel in My Heart won Best Musical in the 2014 Fresh Fruit Festival. He won the 2011 New Works of Merit Playwriting Competition for his play Breeders, previously a finalist at the O’Neill, as well as a selection of the TRU Voices New Plays Reading Series.
The Necessary Disposal was a 2010 finalist in the Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition at the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, has been a finalist in three other national competitions, and was part of the Shotgun Productions New Play Reading Series and the Oberon Theatre Reading Series, both in NYC; his one-act A Glass of Water was part of the Lovecreek Festival, HomoGenius Festival, Downtown Urban Arts Festival; other one-acts have been showcased all over New York. He won a 2004 OOBR Award for the review “Songs Are Like Friends” and is a 3-time MAC nominee. While he was producing his own musical revues at cabarets around Manhattan, he discovered he could combine his artistic talent with the business skills he was picking up in the advertising world. The idea of Theater Resources Unlimited was born, with the help of co-founders (and fellow writers) Gary Hughes and Cheryl Davis in 1992. He has gone on to produce musicals Civil War Voices and Rip in the Midtown International Theater Festival, and last year’s classic Chinese musical, Romance of the Western Chamber.
 
Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a twenty-seven year old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.
 
TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, goods and productions; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through a Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab; programs for actors include an Annual Combined Audition.
 
Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by public funds awarded through the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, as well as the Montage Foundation and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation.
 
For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.