Playwrights Horizons' FAR FROM HEAVEN, TheatreWorks' WHEELHOUSE and More Awarded NAMT Grants

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The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announces 15 awards granted from their National Fund for New Musicals, a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals. Now in its fourth year, the Fund will provide grants totaling $48,000 to 14 organizations across the country.

NAMT Executive Director Betsy King Militello stated, “We are honored to support our member theatres as they develop these exciting, innovative and provocative new musicals. In the past four years, we have given out 45 grants totaling $205,000, all made possible by our generous funders including Stacey Mindich Productions, The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation and The ASCAP Foundation. These projects will join a growing list of important new musicals added to the canon with support from our National Fund for New Musicals.”

National Fund grants of $10,000 to support full productions have been awarded to:

Diversionary Theatre (San Diego, CA) for Harmony, Kansas by Bill Nelson and Anna K. Jacobs, with support from The ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund. This project previously received a NAMT Writers ResidenCy Grant in support of its time at Barrington Stage Company (MA).
Playwrights Horizons (New York, NY) for Far From Heaven by Richard Greenberg, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie. Korie is an alumnus of NAMT’s 1989 Festival of New Musicals for Blanco.
TheatreWorks (Palo Alto, CA) for Wheelhouse by Gene Lewin, Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda, with support from Stacey Mindich Productions. Milburn is an alumnus from NAMT’s 2011 Festival of New Musicals for Watt?!? and, along with Vigoda, for Striking 12 from the 2004 NAMT Festival.

National Fund grants between $2,000 and $3,000 to support a workshop or reading have been awarded to:

American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) for The Verona Project by Amanda Dehnert, with support from The Alhadeff Family Charitable Foundation.
Center Theatre Group (Los Angeles, CA) for a new musical about urban superheroes by Matt Sax.
Dallas Theater Center (Dallas, TX) for Stagger Lee by Will Power, Justin Ellington and Daryl Waters.
Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre, University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK) for Something Wicked This Way Comes by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill, with funds contributed in honor of former NAMT Executive Director Kathy Evans. Bartram and Hill are alumni from NAMT’s 2007 Festival for The Story of My Life.