New musicals to get audience feedback
By Cary Ginell soundthink@aol.com

This weekend, the Theater League will offer Broadway musical fans the chance to weigh in on what works, and what doesn't, at the first annual Festival of New Musicals.

Theater League's role is to enrich the lives of more than 300,000 theatergoers annually through its stagings of Broadway shows in local performing arts centers. The festival is in association with the Academy of New Musical Theatre and Cabrillo Music Theatre.

Always on the lookout for new material, the organization is test marketing four new shows that will be presented on Friday and Saturday, August 25 and 26, at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza's Fred Kavli Theater and Scherr Forum.

The four shows are staged as "readings," in which no sets, costumes, lights, or props are utilized, only actors on stage reading from the script with piano accompaniment.

This method allows the audience to focus on the story and the actors' portrayals of their characters. Feedback from the audience comes through two forums: a pre-show meet-and-greet with the writers, and comment cards to be turned in after the performances.

The shows are selected from among approximately 60 submissions from all over the U.S., and even a few from overseas. Out of these, 16 were selected for possible presentation.

The final four are selected according to their excellence, the variety of their story lines, and their potential appeal to audiences in the Conejo Valley. The readings will be produced by Cabrillo and the Academy.

According to Chris McCoy, artistic director for the festival, the reading "aids the writers in better developing the story to get closer to a full production."

"I Come for Love" concerns Scoop O'Reilly, a beat reporter in 1947 Roswell, New Mexico. All you have to hear is the name "Roswell" to know that alien beings will be somehow involved in the plot.

However, the story turns out to involve not creatures from outer space, but the colorful residents of Roswell, one of whom becomes the target of O'Reilly's affections (Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Kavli Theater).

"Maccabeat!" is a poprock musical based on the Old Testament story of Hanukkah in which Judah Maccabee and his brothers save the holy temple by outwitting their archenemy, Antiochus.

The show's various subplots bring to mind the freewheeling musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber's, "Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," which anachronistically told the Biblical story of Joseph and his brothers (Sunday at 2 p.m. and 7 pm. in the Kavli Theater).

"Showgirl of 52nd Street" focuses on Billie Shay, a Manhattan bag lady who reflects on her past life in the 1950s New York nightclub world. The musical promises to show both the glamorous as well as squalid side of Hollywood musicals (Saturday at 2 and 8 pm. in the Scherr Forum).

"The Grouch's Daughter," inspired by Menander's "Dys-kolos," is about the residents of a small Greek village who are suffering through a horrific drought. Two rivals, Clemnon (a grouch who owns the only working well in town) and his nemesis Xanthippe find themselves in a Montague and Capulet dilemma as Clemnon's daughter and Xanthippe's son fall in love (Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. in the Scherr Forum).

The increasing sophistication of Broadway audiences reflects the more provocative storylines in recent years for successful shows such as "Grey Gardens," "Spring Awakening" and "Avenue Q."

Although the oldfashioned musical romances of Rodgers & Hammerstein are still popular, today's audiences are witnessing more and more "edgy" shows.

The Festival of New Musicals is one way of gauging how audiences in different regions of the country react to these interesting and varied concepts. If one or more of these shows indeed makes it to Broadway, and then back to Thousand Oaks in a fullfledged production, Broadway fans who attend the festival can surely take some amount of credit in their coming to fruition.

Tickets are reasonably priced and are good for any or all of the four shows. For information regarding the festival, visit the website www.TheaterLeague.org / NewMusicals.