The lineup has been announced for the October installments of New York Theatre Barn's New Works Series, hosted by Jen Sandler and Joe Barros.
The free, weekly series, presented Wednesday evenings on New York Theatre Barn’s YouTube channel at 7 PM ET, will feature excerpts from the new musicals The King’s Wife, Love and Southern D!scomfort, Shapeshifters: A Queer Comic Book Musical, Present Perfect, and more. The live 45-minute series includes excerpts from two new musicals and a conversation with the writers and creative team.
The upcoming lineup follows:
October 7
Salem
Book, music, and lyrics by Kira Stone
Directed by Sarna Lapine
Featuring Antonio Cipriano and Kira Stone
In Salem, Susannah, Bridget, Miriam, Martha, Rebecca, and Mary are held hostage in a modern day courtroom for their collective trial by judge and jury. We marvel at the mass hysteria, we deliberate, and we ultimately are a part of deciding the fate of these six women.
Shapeshifters: A Queer Comic Book Musical
Music and words by Truth Bachman
Direction and development by Zhailon Levingston
Featuring Truth Bachman and Basit Shittu
High school bully and comic book genius, Mel, discovers a hidden plane of existence called Queer Time, simply by drawing scenarios with pen and paper. In Queer Time, Mel joins the ranks of an underground network of Queer and Trans superheroes called The Shapeshifters. As Mel and the Shapeshifters sprint toward uncertain futures, this tribe of queer heroes must rely on community to persist, resist, and survive their living nightmares.
October 14
Love and Southern D!scomfort
Music and lyrics by Bobby Daye
Book and lyrics by Monica L. Patton
Directed by Tamara Tunie
Featuring Nikki M. James, Ramona Keller, and Anthony Wayne
When dowager Mrs. Catheine Dejoie, of polite Louisiana society, dies, she leaves the entire estate to her estranged granddaughter Milla, but only if Milla comes home from her self-imposed, decade-long exile to bury Catherine. Milla reluctantly leaves her life in France and returns to her ancestral home, a sprawling postbellum Southern mansion, and to her mother, a faded alcoholic debutante undone by the burden of bearing the family’s legacy.
Present Perfect
Music and additional Spanish lyrics by Jaime Lozano
Book and Lyrics by Nancy Nachama Cheser
Featuring Mauricio Martínez and Stephanie Lynne Mason
A young woman steps outside the confines of her insular ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn and finds herself as much an immigrant in a new land as the recently arrived students she teaches in her New York Adult English class. Lives intertwine as each in their own way struggles to belong, find love, and succeed in a new country.
October 21
The King’s Wife
Music and lyrics by Jamie Floyd
Book by Mêlisa Annis
Featuring Jamie Floyd
The King’s Wife is a new musical that uniquely re-tells the relationship between Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, the first two wives of King Henry VIII of England. While historical accounts paint these women as bitter enemies, The King’s Wife (using historic clues) flips the script to tell their tale differently—the story begins with them as like-minded good friends—plotting and executing ideas for the people and the future before they are stripped of choice, options and each other in a devastating game of politics and power.
Metropolis
Book, music, and lyrics by AriDy Nox and Brandon Webster
Featuring Cory Barrow, Taylor Harris, Tyler McKenzie, Max Morter, Caleb Spainhour, Marthaluz Velez, and HK Wall
Metropolis is an epic tale that follows the Harmonizer-android-unit turned space-time-continuum anarchist Fari as she is wrenched across space and time.
October 28
The Clearwaters
Lyrics by Sara Wordsworth
Music by Russ Kaplan
Book by Daniel John Kelley
Featuring Arielle Jacobs and Zoe Manarel
Minnesota. March, 1999. Young mother Bethany Clearwater has just inherited a house in the dilapidated factory town of Oak Pines, where she moves with her troubled teenage daughter Belinda. Bethany plans to finally escape their nomadic past and make a fresh start. But when Belinda, just two months away from graduating high school, runs away on her first day of school, Bethany turns to desperate and ridiculous measures to ensure a bright future for her daughter...and maybe a second chance for herself.
Little Duende
Music and lyrics by Robi Hager
Book and lyrics by Georgina Escobar
Featuring Daniele Hager and Brianna Lopez
In the land of Elflán, life and beauty flourishes. We meet Adelita, an adventurous and curious young elf eager to find what lies beyond the horizon. When the evil spirit of La Mancha kidnaps her mother and destroys her home, Adelita is forced to travel north to the land of the Hadaseñas in hopes of being reunited with her again.
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