The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) was an annual event held each summer from 2004 to 2019 in New York City's midtowntheater district. It mounted more than 30 new musicals each year, more than half selected through an open-submission, double-blind evaluation process involving prominent theater artists and producers. The festival's artist staff invited the remaining shows. NYMF premiered some 447 musicals, engaging more than 8,000 artists and attracting over 300,000 attendees.
More than 100 of these productions were later staged in other venues—in all 50 US states and in 27 countries, reaching an audience of about four million people, by festival officials' count.[1] More than 20 NYMF shows produced cast albums.
History
Besides musicals, the festival offered readings, concerts featuring new music, educational seminars, and explorations of musicals in TV and film.
It also facilitated unique collaborations between New York-based art organizations. In 2011, NYMF launched "NYMF meets NYMIF," a collaboration with the New York Musical Improv Festival.[2] This weekly series paired performers from NYMF with artists from the Magnet Theater to create improvised musicals. Earlier, in 2005, NYMF and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater explored the intersection of improvisation and musical theater.[1] The festival also collaborated with The Paley Center to screen musicals on television.[3]
In 2005, NYMF received the Jujamcyn Award and its $100,000 prize for developing creative talent.[4] That same year, NYMF introduced a Dance Series to celebrate the integration of musical theatre and dance, featuring the musicals "Common Grounds" (2006) and "Platforms" (2007).[1]
NYMF produced numerous concerts and ran The Next Link Project, a year-round writer service program that provided comprehensive support to help writers develop their musicals into fully staged productions. This initiative culminated annually with subsidized productions for 12 writing teams at NYMF's fall festival.[5]
The festival helped launch Broadway shows. "title of show" became the first NYMF production to transfer to Broadway in 2008, followed by "Next to Normal" in 2009, which won three Tony Awards[6] and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.[7] In 2009, NYMF began working with the Daegu International Musical Theatre Festival, facilitating a production exchange and fostering international recognition and accolades.[8]
In 2013, NYMF received a Special Drama Desk Award for a decade-long effort to create and nurture musical theater.[9]
In 2016, "Nerds: A Musical Software Satire" was slated to be NYMF's fourth Broadway transfer, its opening was cancelled due to the loss of a major investor.[10]
NYMF abruptly ceased operations on January 2, 2020.[11]
NYMF Awards for Excellence
At the end of every festival starting in 2006, a jury of Broadway professionals gave awards for excellence to the deserving productions in that year's festival. There was also a "Best of Fest" award that the public votes for.
