Up next in 10
Summer is Here and NYMF is Coming! Go Inside Rehearsals for Five New Musicals
Nov 4, 2022
Now in its fourteenth year, the 2017 New York Musical Festival will take place July 10th through August 6th at The Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row, The Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Playwrights Horizons Rehearsal Studio, The Green Room 42 @ YOTEL, and The Castillo Theatre in New York City. Dan Markley serves as NYMF Executive Director and Rachel Sussman serves as Producing Artistic Director. BroadwayWorld is taking you inside rehearsals below!
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. The 2017 New York Musical Festival
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will run from July 10th through August 6th and we drop by the rehearsal studio
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to bring you a sneak peek. I can go, he called the shots, he does it less they cast his lie
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Immortality, that's my guarantee. Your signature's all that I need
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The Lincoln guy would sign on the line. What are you looking forward to to that first performance on stage in this brand new musical
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Which is like when? When is your first performance? Two weeks? Yeah, the 10th. July 10th
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I think we're the first show of the festival. Yeah. We're opening it
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I'm looking forward to remembering my lines. I'm looking forward to probably just having some champagne with Audra afterwards
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All these things are going to happen for you. You know that after that first show. I'm just looking forward
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We tech that day. You get two hours, I think, to tech or something. We tech that day and then open
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So I'm looking forward to actually seeing what the show looks like that day
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That'll be fun. I'm so excited for people to see it, though. I think it's hilarious watching in rehearsals
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The staging is so funny. I'm really excited for being able to see it. And we couldn't even do our staging
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because it was too small. Right. The room was too small that you saw today. I also want to say, I guess what I actually really am
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looking forward to, if I'm not making jokes, is I'm really excited for the writers to see it come to life
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It's really fun to kind of peek over in rehearsal and watch them light up, because that's
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kind of what it's all about. It like fueling their work and kind of just being the conduit for it to come to life You know that what kind of for me the most magical thing about it So I excited to see if they enjoy it after opening
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How excited were you two? I was so excited to be here in front of people with my gear and show what we've been cooking up
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Every time I hear her open her mouth, my mind is blown. I've been having so much fun here, especially today, just getting to show it with people
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Me and Natalie did the show together six years ago. I was 16 then. I'm 23 now
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So jumping back into this show as like a new human being with new faces and a new world
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it's really exciting to be a part of. What are you looking forward to the most about that first performance on stage
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Everyone having the same hit that we get when we're on stage, it's a visceral experience
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You're taken into a time where you can feel the power of Earth and people
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and their respect for each other and their respect for the Earth And then you have all this love, this beautiful love story that is relevant then, relevant now
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It grabs at your heart. It's exciting. And I'm excited to have that experience with our cast and with everybody else as well
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Because that's what theater is about, right? That shared experience. So I'm really looking forward to that
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It's really important that we tell all stories on stage. So I'm very excited that this culture, this skin tone, these people are getting to tell their stories
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How did this all come about for you to write? Well, the idea came to me like 20 years ago when I was on my first nine-day silent meditation
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retreat and I was thinking about the Buddha legend and it struck me that it was very archetypal
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and epic and that it would make a great musical. And after that I thought about it for about five years and then I started drafting it but I kept thinking about what would my way in be and I thought about how there were certain elements in the Buddhist past that I found sort of questionable and how would those be viewed differently if it were a woman
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So I got the idea to make a female contemporary Buddha character and a reporter who is out to discredit her
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That's a great way in. We can't wait to find out what happened. And for you, Nancy, being a part of this, what a great role
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Oh, well, I mean, it's a role that I've never played anything like this before
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But what was interesting was that I had already gotten into meditation and yoga to prepare for understudying Glenn Close
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which is rather nerve-wracking. And then these guys came to me in the hallway at Pearl Studios and said
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do you have any interest in playing a female Buddha character? And I said, well, I guess that's what I'm supposed to do next
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And the music is gorgeous. The story is beautifully constructed. It's a really exciting piece
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What was today like for you? Brand new musical. It was very exciting
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I mean, this has been in development for a few years now, and this is actually our first production
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So it's been very exciting to be a part of Nymph and to get it out into the world, yeah
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It's emotional to really share your work for a new audience, and I'm excited that we get to share it, just like the girls got to share their music
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For you as the director, what it's been like and what attracted you to want to direct this
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I've been involved the entire time with the development of the piece, And I knew from the first time I read it
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I wanted to direct it because it was such an amazing story of female empowerment and of these like really amazing women
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and the things that they could do through music in their life. And for you two, it was so wonderful to watch you do what you do
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like act, sing, play instruments. I mean it was so wonderful to walk in that room I mean you kicked us off today Oh yeah it it our first day was yesterday No joke You could open tonight You know that I don know that but that very sweet of you to say
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But for me, it was my first day with this piece in total yesterday
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And it is such a special piece to be a part of. And it feels really like we are in the room at the company building a band together
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And that's just an extraordinary feeling when everybody is so talented and so musical
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And it's just been lovely. I've done a couple readings of the show prior, so I knew the music and I knew the story and
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I've just been in love with it from the first time that I got to be part of it
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And so now adding the instruments in and really doing it full out is really exciting and also
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really challenging because I've never, you know, I've played guitar but never in a show
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like this and so I think it's going to challenge and stretch us all as artists in a way that's
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really exciting. I'm running my train
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I'm running my train I'm running my train
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You and me, it's our destiny And we're gonna ride that train
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You and me, it's our destiny We're gonna ride that train We're here and proud so let's sing it loud
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And we're gonna ride that train
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