Stage Directions: Goodspeed Musicals is starting off its 50th anniversary season with a bang: They’ve partnered with the Johnny Mercer Foundation to establish the Musical Theatre Writers Colony. The four-week residency program for musical theatre writers will offer 14-20 “established and emerging writers the unique opportunity to research, develop, and create new musicals.” Each writing team will have a mentor chosen from “the highest levels of musical theatre professionals,” unlimited access to research materials in the Scherer Library of Musical Theatre, composition time in Goodspeed’s music studios, and collaborative exchange with their peers through a series of informal salons for presenting and sharing their work. Members of the Goodspeed artistic staff and the Johnny Mercer Foundation will be on hand to offer guidance and support.
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I saw the importance of these residencies and writer's colonies over the summer at a theatre focused around the support of playwrights and development of new work. The playwrights in residence with our theatre built a camaraderie not only with each other but with the artistic community working at the theatre at large, and being able to do readings and workshops on their work with the community allowed them both to finish full plays by the end of the experience. What I'm wondering about is that since this colony is specifically for musical theatre writers and since such plays are usually the product of multiple writers working together, are they only looking for currently existing collaborators, or are they looking to foster opportunity for the writers to find partners? It would be really interesting to see what the output from the four-week residency will be - how many pieces and how many plans for future collaboration.
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