Pipeline Theatre Company has launched the NewWorks Accelerator Initiative, a program that aims to fill a critical gap in support for projects currently in development. The program will provide commissioning funds to push artists’ interdisciplinary theater projects forward, and will culminate in the NewWorks Showcase, which will present three new plays at New York City's HERE Arts Center next month.

The works being presented for the the inaugural NewWorks Showcase, which will feature 20-minute excerpts from three musicals in development as well as panel discussions with playwrights currently taking part in Pipeline’s PlayLab writers group, include Untitled Virginia Galilei Project, Gemini Behavior, and We Won't Sleep.

With a book by Emily Maltby and music and lyrics by Sam Wilmott, Untitled Virginia Galilei Project follows 12-year-old Virginia Galilei who has just arrived at the convent of San Matteo, stripped of everything—her possessions, her family, and even her name. But in her isolation, cut off from the gravitational forces of Renaissance society, her mind and imagination ignite and launch her into her own odyssey through the cosmos.

Written and performed by Janelle McDermoth, Gemini Behavior is a genre-bending one-woman theatrical experience fusing stand up comedy, astrological education, and vibrant original music performed by a "generational yapper," award-winning theatre maker, and certified Gemini.

Written and performed by Ari Afsar, We Won't Sleep is a theatrical activation using music, testimony, and community engagement to explore American democracy, ultimately asking whether democracy can withstand the rise of authoritarianism.

The evening will also host the "Artist Reception and Sponsorship Kiki," where artists, producers, and audience members enjoy food and drinks while forging essential connections to propel their projects toward full production.

“It is no secret that support for new work in development is drying up. Especially as we see long cherished and vital organizations like The Lark vanishing," said Executive Director, Adam Hyndman. "With the costs of developing new musicals on Broadway continuing to rise, Pipeline sees a real need in the field to help artists (who have already begun to work on daring new stories) to get their projects to the next step of their creative process. We are so grateful to The Howard Gilman Foundation for supporting us in this charge, and our hope is that our NewWorks Accelerator and Showcase will help fill a critical gap. We want to prove to the field that investing early in more new voices and new stories will bring long-term sustainability to our art form.”