NYC Theatre Board: Musicals

Overview

SOUND BITES is our flagship program: an annual festival of 10-minute musicals. Ten 10-minute musicals are selected through an open submission process to be presented as a one-night event in NYC.

The centerpiece of our organization is the Musical Writers Lab, which includes a New York Group and an International Chapter, each with 10 diverse writing teams who meet weekly to develop new musicals. Writers and composers in the Lab are provided resources as needed, including mentoring, studio space, casting assistance, office resources, and legal services. There is no fee to apply for the Lab, and there are no required fees or costs associated with Lab membership.

From the musicals developed in our Lab, we produce developmental readings, workshops and off-Broadway productions at no cost to our writers. These presentations require the majority of our resources and represent the culmination of the developmental process of our Lab. They aim to get writers out of the writers  room and allow the public to experience new works of musical theatre performed by high-caliber talent.

We help Lab members and SOUND BITES alumni publish and license their shows through an ongoing relationship with Music Theatre International (MTI). Our book The 10-Minute Musical:
An Anthology from the SOUND BITES Festival, published in 2020, is the first of its kind on the market and includes 25 shows in our licensable collection available through MTI. To date there have been over 1,000 productions of these mini-musicals nationwide. Many have also been translated into Spanish and performed in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries. We recently licensed an additional 22 short titles as well as 2 full-length musicals through MTI and plan to add more titles bi-annually.

The remainder of our programming is designed to foster our writers  growth, present their work publicly, and provide networking opportunities. Our cabaret series, Verse Intro Cabaret, plays monthly at SoHo Playhouse, and our monthly Industry Nights feature special events including public Master Classes for our writers with prominent musical theatre creators, including Tony winners and nominees such as Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Rachel Sheinkin, Lisa Lambert, Andrew Lippa, Adam Gwon, Susan Birkenhead, Mindi Dickstein, Anna K.

Jacobs, and many others.

Our main requirement is that you love theatre and believe in the importance of supporting new theatrical works. We welcome professionals from a variety of fields (legal, finance, public relations, entertainment, marketing, sales, real estate, etc.) with or without prior board or non-profit experience.

Theatre Now New York is a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation, development and production of new musicals by offering ongoing support to writers in order to nurture voices that push the boundaries of musical theatre.

Theatre Now seeks to create a vibrant community of early and mid-career musical theatre artists who have the support they need to thrive while producing quality presentations of new musicals. Our vision is to be a champion for innovative writers throughout their careers, guiding their musicals from creation through development to production, publication, and licensing, and introducing audiences to diverse voices.

We are dedicated to shaping the future of musical theatre, one transformative story at a time.

Please contact us if you are interested in finding out more about board membership, and we will provide you with more information.