Shadows, a dance musical

Produced by Go Joe Enterprises
Book by Randall David Cook
Music by Edison Woods, Maxim Moston and Karen Bishko
Directed by Joey McKneely

Nominations: Outstanding Choreography / Movement - Joey McKneely; Outstanding Original Music: Karen Bishko, Maxim Moston, & Edison Woods


About Shadows, a dance musical
When a married woman starts an affair in her NYC pied-à-terre, she discovers it is haunted by spirits. Trapped by their own violent past, the spirits try to stop this affair from escalating. Past informs the present as the cycle repeats itself to a dramatic conclusion.

How far will you go to keep the one you love?

Photos by Jay Michaels

The nominees and producer Jay Michaels discuss their experience of creating this new concept musical.

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What first attracted you to this work?

Joey: The show was an opportunity to create a new form of a musical. Trying to create something fresh using dance as a major form of narrative was the big attraction.

Karen: I was attracted to this show because it's a script about a passionate affair between two unhappily married people. I remember hearing an interview with Sting once where he talked about how love triangles are brilliant for songwriting. I thought I could get stuck into this.

Maxim: My writing partner Julia Frodhal came to me with this project and I loved the idea of melding dance and drama.

Jay: Joey McKneely and Randall David Cook created the project

What was your favorite part of working on Shadows...?

Joey: My favorite part was collaborating not only with my fellow creatives, but with our extraordinary cast of actors and dancers. To see how passionate they all were from the get go was a real treat to experience.

Karen: The people. What a wonderful team.

Maxim: Seeing the actors and dancers put it all together after years of looking at a page or a sound file.

Jay: Watching it come to life

What was the most challenging aspect of this experience for you?

Joey: The most challenging part was trying to get it right. Once an audience comes into the theater, they let you know what's working and what's not. With the limited time we had, it was really a push to try to make the changes to the show and discover how we could improve our show.

Karen: Being sent home to write a song overnight. There was a hole in the script, which I pointed out and then got nominated to fill. By then I knew the amazing actor and voice that I was writing it for (John Arthur Greene) so it was a different and better experience. Also rewarding because John loved the song when I took it to him the next day.

Maxim: Multiple directions were explored, which meant multiple cues and some brilliant cues needed to be discarded.

Jay: Producing it. Independent theater is far more "hands-on" than Broadway (which McKneely is used to) and needed a lot more care and attention. It became that much more satisfying as all facets could have your signature.

What do you think the funniest or most ironic part of the production for you?

Joey: Wow...being the producer, director, choreographer, conceiver, set/tech supervisor, delivery driver, janitor and anything else that needed to get done during this process was the most exhausting yet inspiring thing I have ever attempted to do.

Karen: Our dress rehearsal was a disaster. Everything went wrong. Ballerina Irina Dvorovenko, possibly the most graceful woman I've ever met, couldn't shut the french doors on the set. She ended up slamming them so hard that the whole set nearly fell over. Randall David Cook (the book writer) and I nearly died laughing. I still laugh every time I think about it.

Maxim: Melding of "high art" and comedy reminded me of On The Town.

Jay: The musical is a Gothic ghost story that took place in a 100 year old building and the theatre is over a century old (which McKneely didn't know when acquiring it) so the whole picture was "supernatural."

What was the best part of working with this company of artists?

Joey: The best thing about these artist is that they all believed in the show. They gave they're all every day. I am so grateful for their time and commitment to the show.

Karen: No egos! Everyone was just a team.

Maxim: Their total dedication.

Jay: Brilliance and mind-reading. Amazing talent and knowing what "works"

Did you gain any insight or learn anything new from this experience?

Joey: Yes, I discovered being a producer is way harder than directing/choreographing a show!

Karen: I learned so much, especially from Joey McNeely. He worked so hard and he pushes everyone and they respond. I also really learnt, quite simply, to work from someone else's script. Randall would give me extra notes about exactly what he thought the song should say, I'd put my twist on it and somehow it worked.

Maxim: I actually like dance.

What does receiving this nomination mean to you?

Joey: It is a huge honor to get this nomination. For all the hard work and sacrifice I made just to get the show on stage, it feels like a little slice of heaven is saying "don't give up, keep going!" It is an enormous gift.

Karen: I'm over the moon to be nominated for this award because I knew this show was different and special and I've worked hard on the songs for years. They're not traditional musical theatre songs at all and it's lovely to be recognized for them.

Maxim: A true honor.

Jay: Validation for the work; acceptance by the community; an honor.

MEET THE 2019 NOMINEES: Assassins

Produced by The Secret Theatre
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim 
Book by John Weidman
Director: Lauren Shields
Musical Director: Morgan Morse

Nominations: Outstanding Director – Lauren Shields; Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role – Evan Teich (see post); and Outstanding Production of a Musical

About the Secret Theatre
The Secret Theatre strives to provide New York City and surrounding communities with inexpensive, but high-caliber performances, to expand the horizons of patrons young and old alike who would normally not venture outside of the main borough. As a venue for assorted live entertainment, particularly classical theatre, as well as new works, comedy, and musicals.

Photos by Jakub Djeko

About Assassins
Nine individuals who have attempted a presidential assassination tell their stories in this revue-style musical of humor, drama, history, and fiction. Assassins is an illustration of very different people who have made extreme choices for varied reasons.

What about directing Assassins was most attractive for you?

Lauren: We all have a shadow side of ourselves that lurks deep in our consciousness. The consequences of the impact on us by our culture and our own individual tragedies can make us do reprehensible things in desperation. Some act on it, while others do not. No one person or set of experiences can be seen as black and white. I wanted to show audiences a deeper side of the humans that are seen as villains to so many of us.




What was it like to work with The Secret Theatre?

Lauren: This company dedicated so much of their time and passion into this project. They spent hours researching and working before they stepped into the rehearsal room. It made the rehearsal process powerful, moving and inspiring. I could not have had a better team.

Make sure to check out The Secret Theatre on Twitter - @secrettheatreny

Alex & Eugene

Produced by Isle of Shoals Productions, Inc.
Written by Bryan Williams
Directed by Justy Kosek

Nominations: Outstanding Choreography/Movement – Alex Johnson, Outstanding Lighting Design – Asa Lipton, Outstanding Ensemble: Aja Downing, Reggie Herold, Katherine Leidlein, Joseph M. Mace, Rori Nogee, Noah Pyzik, Jae Shin, Anna Stefanic, Brittany Zeinstra

About Isle of Shoals Productions:
The Isle of Shoals motto is “Theatre for Discovery.” Since its founding, Isle of Shoals has maintained a commitment to developing and producing pieces (from brand new to ancient), which might otherwise never or seldom get to see the light of day in our present theater ecosystem. The works Isle of Shoals gravitates towards are those which celebrate the human spirit and enrich the artistry of early and mid-career theater professionals of every stripe and creed. We pride ourselves on being the inclusive theater company that says “yes” to brilliant new ideas that are elsewhere met with echoing “no”s. Isle of Shoals has invested deeply over the years in developing pieces that defy the commercial theatre tropes of “straight plays” and “musicals.” Mindful that the earliest dramas were in fact chanted, and the earliest operas placed more emphasis on words than on music, we strive to find unique and adventurous ways to bring the two together.

About Alex & Eugene:
A world premiere musical suggested by Alexander Pushkin’s "Eugene Onegin," but set in contemporary New York among a group of theatre kids valiantly trying to hang on to friendship, love and idealism while trying to make it in a cutthroat business. A thoroughly modern tale of young artists struggling to find themselves in a world where their bond with each other is often the only refuge from despair


What first attracted you to this project?

Reggie: I had just graduated from college, and it was a piece about a group of overconfident artists graduating college, finding solace and a tribe in one another; there was a message there that I loved.

Katherine: My character. I love getting to play the comic relief.

Joseph: The sides!

Rori: It was a world premiere musical in NYC

Anna: I’d had a great experience working with Isle Of Shoals before, and was excited to work with Justy and Bryan again!

Alex: Isle of Shoals doing a musical!

Asa: The combination of drama and comedy in the writing and the lighting opportunities that go with the high theatricality of the piece.

Bryan: It's a multi-leveled story of love and friendship that is funny and heartfelt, and ultimately tragic.

What was your favorite part of working on Alex & Eugene?

Asa: My favorite part was programming the lights for the various musical numbers. I really loved working out the timing of the cues to work with and support the music.

Bryan: The unbridled enthusiasm and creativity of the entire company.

Reggie: It was my first show in Manhattan, and as an introduction to the city and the acting community - it couldn’t have been a warmer or more welcoming experience. Additionally, the role itself was dialogue heavy, so I had a chance to really play as an actor in addition to doing my musical theater thing.

Katherine: Being able to collaborate on a new piece with so many talented actors was a dream!

Joseph: The ensemble!

Jae: The other castmembers!

Rori: Being surrounded by a company of unique and amazing artists

Anna: The fun, friendly and supportive cast!

Alex: The ensemble for sure. Every ensemble that works well together is so rich and rewarding.

What was the most challenging part of working on this production?

Bryan: Because it ends in the suicide of a young man, the temptation was to make that the subject of the play, when in actuality it was about both the power and the limitations of friendship

Katherine: Dealing with such a heavy topic like suicide.

Reggie: The singing! My degree is in acting, and while I did musicals in college, I hadn’t taken voice lessons in years, I started with Matt Farnsworth and Mike Maixner during that rehearsal process.

Joseph: The moving set pieces and keeping the scene changes in order!

Asa: The most challenging part was making a well-rounded product with the time and resources we had for tech. Musicals are difficult to program lights for in general because they are usually more cue-heavy and have lots of tech-heavy moments. Therefore, it was difficult to give each scene and each lighting moment the time it needed to make the show well-rounded and keep it visually interesting throughout.

Rori: Figuring out how to give humanity to an unlikable character

Anna: I’m not the most confident singer and certainly not the most confident dancer, so it was challenging to push my boundaries and try to live up to the musical!

Alex: Choreographing for characters who don’t really dance.

What was the funniest part of your experience working on this production?

Bryan: We had a brilliant set built around a group of seesaws that the cast would often move to change the scene. Sometimes these changes were fairly elaborate and took longer than we would have liked. We encouraged the cast to fill in the silences, and they ran with that so some of the changes became mini-improvisations that were enjoyable scenes in themselves

Reggie: I almost didn’t get the role! I got viciously sick right before the callback, and when I went in I could barely speak. They had to ask the accompanist to play more quietly so they could hear me sing. Luckily, the reads themselves went really well, and they called me in for a special callback on my own once I had healed up a few days later to make sure I could actually sing the part.

Katherine: My role was really a two person role and it would be nothing without Noah!

Rori: We all had a laugh when the announcements told the audience it was a two hour and 45 minute production. Inevitably, someone in the audience would get vocally cranky after hearing that.

Alex: We did an awesome number with sock puppets!

Asa: One of the quirkiest things about the production was that there is a musical number where all the actors are using sock puppets while singing. We had to keep re-teching that scene and re-focusing the lights for it because the puppets weren't landing properly in their lights. In very few other industries are your recurring work problems/aggravations caused by puppets. Also, we had a decent budget for this show (as far as independent theatre goes), but in order to get all the lighting equipment we needed we still had to rent from three different companies, including another independent theatre company (Flux Theatre Ensemble), so that we could get the best prices for all the gear we needed.

Did you gain any insights or learn anything new from your work on this production?

Rori: It was fascinating to watch the writer make edits and cuts during the process. Sometimes you have to "kill your darlings!"

Alex: The importance of intimacy directors, AND the value of a movement director as well as choreographer.

Asa: I learned some new strategies for how to economically place a limited number of lights to effectively cover a large playing space.

Reggie: New York is a lovely place to be an actor! I had heard so much negativity and had so much fear instilled in me by my college professors about what moving to New York would mean, but I’m a year in and I’m still having a great time. It all started with Alex & Eugene!

What did you want the audience to come away with after watching Alex & Eugene?

Bryan: What an inspiring group of struggling young people, I know them (or would like to)

What was it like to work with Isle of Shoals?

Reggie: The friendships that were built was really the best thing about this company! Cliche answer, but truly, the people I met doing this show have become lovely friends, and we still have a little group chat going a year later. Bryan (our writer/composer extraordinaire) gave us so much freedom to improvise and play with the script, and the result was that our characters became so individualized and wedded to who we are as artists.

Katherine: Everyone was just so talented and kind and full of ideas it made the process very special.

Rori: Getting to follow their the careers of the people who worked on the show has been really fun. One girl went straight to her Broadway debut after we closed!

Alex: Very supportive, forward thinkers at this company.

Asa: Their fun, collaborative attitudes and respect for the technical aspects of their productions.

Why are the artists nominated for Alex & Eugene so awesome?

Bryan: The whole project was truly an ensemble effort with everyone supporting and collaborating with each other

What does receiving this nomination mean to you?

Bryan: A validation that all the work and passion we put into the show did manage to reach and was appreciated by the audience

Reggie: So much! I didn’t expect a thing, but it’s lovely for the work we did to be recognized.

Joseph: It is very special that our team was recognized, it was a true ensemble effort.

Alex: That I can hold my own at a big kid job.

Asa: Receiving this nomination is huge for me. I've been hearing about and watching the IT Awards since I first moved to the city about 6 years ago. I've seen people that I looked up to and (eventually) colleagues, get nominated for and win them. Therefore, it's truly thrilling to consider myself of the same caliber of those designers that I looked up to when I first moved here.

Rori: That my hard work isn't falling on deaf ears. Someone is paying attention!

Check out Isle of Shoals on Instagram @isleofshoalsproductions

The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit

Written by Allan Knee
Music and Lyrics by Andre Catrini
Directed by Thomas Coté
Produced by WorkShop Theater Company


Nominated for: Outstanding Production of a Musical

About the Production
WorkShopTheater Company's goal is to "transport, challenge and surprise both artists and audiences," so it is not surprising that they were drawn to Allan Knee and Andre Catrini's musical The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit. This production imagines the young boy in Dickens' holiday classic, as a young man venturing into the world for the first time to stake his claim.

Director Thomas Coté shares his thoughts about developing a new American musical.

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What attracted you to this subject matter?

Thomas: Allan Knee has been a long-time writer with The Workshop, and I have directed many of his plays. He first approached me with a straight-play version, but as it developed, Andre Catrini came onboard, and suddenly we were doing a musical!  I love A Christmas Carol, and I love how Allan and Andre have imagined a continuation of that material. It's just very rich storytelling.

What was your favorite part of working on this production? 

Thomas: The collaboration. We had an excellent production team, all of whom were talented and inspired by the material. Everyone's input was important, all the ideas were interesting, and so it was just one of those shows that made us all feel very creative.

What was the most challenging part of working on this production? 

Thomas: Money!  Stretching budgets, trying to get every dollar to show up onstage. How do you costume three bears when you have absolutely no money left?

What do you want the audience to come away with after watching your production?

Thomas: In this case, I want them to be entertained. Allan's writing is very layered, so there are many poignant and beautiful moments that will adjoin very funny moments, and Andre's music captures those emotions as well. Timothy's journey is a successful one, so I hope people leave feeling happy, maybe inspired, maybe hopeful.

Why do you think it is important to develop new American musicals?

Thomas: Putting together a new play is, I think, the hardest thing to do in theater. Putting together a play with music is probably even harder, so when you achieve any kind of success, it feels extremely gratifying.  More importantly, musicals are a very pliant form, and when text and music are put together effectively, it can yield such powerful results. It is a form that can communicate stories in a very unique and compelling way.

What was the most noteworthy part of working on this production?

Thomas: There were really no hiccoughs in this production - that's kind of noteworthy!

AND, we're doing it again!  Because The Workshop's mission is to develop new American plays and musicals. Andre and Allan have been hard at work using what we learned last December to revise and sculpt the play. I' m very excited about the revisions - changes to the structure, new songs, new characters.  We open December 1 (www.workshoptheater.org).

You can follow WorkShop Theater on Twitter - @workshoptheater

My Career In Theatre: What A/An ____________ [ADJECTIVE] Road!

Contributed by Robin Rothstein

For me, working in the theatre has been a thrilling and ever-changing road map. I've been down quite a few roads in my career – actor, playwright, lyricist, producer, arts advocate, and commercial theatre professional, to name a few.

It’s not unusual, though, to wear different hats over the course of a theatre career and it’s also no secret that it’s a tough industry, loaded with personal and financial risk from indie theatre on up to Broadway, and beyond. But this is partly what makes it so rewarding and exciting, right? And the industry is expanding every day – artistically, commercially, globally. You can create opportunities everywhere if you know how to look for them.
What’s been so cool for me is being part of both the indie theatre world and the Broadway world. I owe a LOT to both for giving me a wide range of knowledge and experiences. In the indie world, I’ve been fortunate to have my writing produced in New York festivals over the years, including, once again, the NY Indie Theatre One Minute Play Festival coming up this May, and I’ve learned about local politics by getting into the trenches alongside my colleagues at the League of Independent Theatre (LIT), where the fight for more financial support for the arts goes on. My interest in arts advocacy also inspired me to join my community board where I was promoted to Chair of the Arts & Institutions Committee. I continue to use that as a platform to raise awareness and to remind people how instrumental the arts are to the well being of society, both culturally and economically.

And it is at this intersection, between the arts and economics, where I now find myself. Having worked in the touring division at Broadway Across America for a number of years now, I have seen time and time again how important commercial touring shows are to keeping theatre alive across the U.S., and how “the road” feeds back to Broadway in the tourist dollars that were part of the record numbers reported for 2015. This same paradigm of the arts benefiting local economies can be found across the country. It has also been a known fact for years that artists and arts organizations help the local economy here in NYC.

The past few years have been especially rewarding for me, as I took the initiative to combine my creative writing expertise, my theatre business know-how, and my interest in the arts promoting community prosperity. I got an idea for a project that fulfilled me artistically, and that I also believed had enduring commercial potential. This project was my family musical, MAD LIBS LIVE!

It took nearly eight years for the project to get from the “light bulb” going off in my head in my mom's kitchen to the world premiere Off-Broadway this past November at New World Stages. And while there were many challenges and unknowns all along the way, I wouldn’t trade a moment of it! What an exciting road the MAD LIBS LIVE! process has been and continues to be, as our team is now busy preparing for the exciting touring and licensing opportunities beyond our Off-Broadway run.

There will continue to be roads to choose from, but as long as I keep choosing, I’ll be on the right road, even if I end up making what feels like a wrong turn. (I’ve learned those can often turn out to be right turns in the end.) And as I move forward with MAD LIBS LIVE! and other endeavors, I can't wait to see where these next roads take me! 

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Robin Rothstein is a critically acclaimed playwright and commissioned book writer and lyricist whose writing has been produced in New York, across the U.S., and internationally. She is also Director of Operations at Broadway Across America and Chair of the Arts & Institutions Committee of Community Board 2, Manhattan. For more info on MAD LIBS LIVE!, please visit MAD LIBS LIVE!