December brings us to the end of our first year for our NAMT New Works Department newsletter. While 2023 dances offstage, we’re looking back with super smiles on the truly mega year!

Things got BIG right away with 575 submissions for the 35th Annual Festival of New Musicals, launching a six-month selection process toward our annual blockbuster event. (If you’re wondering, we’re 160 in the bank for the 36th Fest, so get yours in now!) And it wasn’t just writers pulling through, but NAMT Members showing up in major ways too — our Spring Conference was back to pre-pandemic attendance and featured our first live New Works Concert in Chicago, and a record-breaking 197 attendees including 42 panelists traveled to New York City for the Fall Conference. Our granting programs paved the way for a national season of new musical development & production as well as strategic capacity-building programs supporting our work all across the field with a whopping $105,000 to 30 organizations. All this, and we added a new HUGE program to the NAMT lineup, the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge for High School Students, which we’re thrilled to be a part of with the National Endowment for the Arts, Concord Theatricals, Disney Theatrical Productions and the NMPA S.O.N.G.S. Foundation.

And we’re not the only ones bitten by the “big bug” in 2023. It was truly, well, a Renaissance… between breakthroughs in AI, Barbenheimer or our favorite (if not at least omnipresent) blondie: Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift. Big’s not bad, sometimes it takes being big to compete or going big to get the message across. But the fact is that we’re all back and packing extra pent-up ideas and energy and plots and plans.  

If you can believe it, NAMT has even more up our sleeve. As we turn our focus forward, however, I wonder if what we really want in 2024 is not even bigger, but better. It’s an easy moment to feel small. You don’t need us to speak toward the incredibly difficult time ahead of our writers, our members, our audiences and those that they love. So, let’s look hopefully toward 2024 as the year where every note, every word and every scene on the page and around us radiates with a promise of something greater.

That’s our promise to you: in 2024, we’ll give it everything we’ve got! You can probably bet it’ll make a splash. And without a doubt, we’ll demonstrate that, even in fleeting times, musical theatre holds the remarkable ability to make us, at the very least, feel better.

    Happy New Year!

    Frankie Dailey
    NAMT New Works Director

Only weeks after the debut of his first musical’s concept EP, and fresh from the first read-through of his even newer show, two-time Frank Young Fund for New Musicals Grantee Jesse J. Sanchez not only tunes in with us, but also turns up the volume on his creative spirit.

Pop in your headphones! Join us for a jam session and a journey through the heart of storytelling. Find out why when Jesse plays, the world listens.

"My name is Jesse J. Sanchez, and I'm originally from San Jose, California. I grew up going to Lincoln High School, a public performing arts magnet, and I started in the middle school band and really wanted to learn how to play an instrument. In high school, I joined all the different bands. I was playing in Jazz Band one day, and our teacher said, “I heard you’re pretty good. We’re looking for a trumpet to play in the pit for the school musical.” School musical? What is that? She didn’t even ask. She said I was going to play in the pit, and so my first musical was Oklahoma! during my freshman year. I had no idea what a “Sitzprobe” was, but we were playing, they were singing and dancing, and I was hooked!" Read More. 

If you liked this story, don't forget this epic EP journey as well:

Taking Flight: The Unstoppable Ascent of AZUL

On the afternoon of their EP release and just hours before their celebratory concert at Feinstein’s/54 Below, we sat down with Melis Aker (Book/Lyrics), Jacinta Clusellas (Music/Lyrics) and Tatiana Pandiani (Book/Lyrics/Director), the creators of the new musical Azul (Fest ’21) at the Consulate General of Argentina in New York City. Read More. 

Musical Theatre Educators’ Alliance (MTEA) New Works Collaboration Catalog

https://www.musicaltheatreeducators.org/new-works-collaboration-catalogue

Submission deadline: December 15, 2023

Michigan State University New Musical Laboratory

http://theatre.msu.edu/nml

Submission deadline: December 18, 2023

NAMT 36th Annual Festival of New Musicals
https://namt.org/newmusicals/festival-submissions/

Submission deadline: December 19, 2023 (Free Submit, paid deadline Jan 9, 2024)

Pipeline Arts Foundation

https://pipelinearts.org/

Submission deadline: Dec 31, 2023

[UNTITLED] Musical Project Winter Writers Group

https://www.untitledmusicalproject.org/writers-group

Submission deadline: December 31st, 2023

Theatre Now New York's SOUND BITES ELEVEN, the 11th Annual Festival of 10-Minute Musicals

https://www.tnny.org/soundbitessubmissions

Submission deadline: January 2nd, 2024

2025 Grawemeyer Awards

http://grawemeyer.org/music-composition/

Nomination deadline: January 19, 2024

Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge for High School Students

http://namt.org/challenge

Submission deadline: January 31, 2024

Want to add to this listing? Spot an error or old info? Reach out to us at newworks@namt.org.

As the curtain falls on an unforgettable year in musical theatre, NAMT is thrilled to present a grand finale of inspiration and joy! Stay tuned through Winter Break for exclusive video submission tips and memorable performances from our 2023 events! Join our vibrant cast across the social stage, and let's keep the applause going all the way into the new year!

In the meantime, brush up on your submissions as due dates approach! It's not too late to join us for a few workshops and info sessions from this year. Check out more below!

Dive into the applications for the 36th Annual Festival of New Musicals at this Submission Info Session! Learn more about the selection process and step through each application component, looking closely at the details. Don't miss this chance for a few helpful hints as well! More info at namt.org/festapp. 

Part of the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge for High School Students, go on the ultimate journey into the center of the action with Songwriting 101: Words & Lyrics. Festival Alum Kalani Queypo (Missing Piece, Fest '21) takes center stage and shows us more ways about wordsmithing, with performances and a live demonstration too! Check out more at namt.org/challenge. 

More from the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge for High School Students, make more of a musical process with Festival Alum Anna K. Jacobs (Teeth, Fest '19) at Songwriting 201: The Music. Get a front row view of simply starting your song as well as a starter guide to capture simple demos. More at namt.org/challenge.