The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Event set to debut 4 local musicals
Inaugural Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival opens Monday.
They may not come with the famous name recognition or flashy production values of a full-blown “Miss Saigon” or “In the Heights” — currently taking Atlanta audiences by storm at Serenbe and Aurora, respectively — but four locally conceived and developed musicals are debuting next week during the inaugural Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival (Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 1-2).
The event will feature workshop stagings of each new show. For whatever they might lack in terms of traditional design elements, they more than compensate by enlisting some of the most proven musical-theater talents in town to perform them: Wendy Melkonian, Marcie Millard, Bernardine Mitchell, Chase Peacock and Julissa Sabino, among others.
The festival began as the “baby brainchild” of Atlanta actor Benjamin Davis. Last year at this time, he was rehearsing a show (by local actors Jeremiah Parker Hobbs and Jessica De Maria) for a similar showcase at the New York
Musical Theatre Festival.
“At first, the idea of having something like that here was just a fleeting thought that popped into my head, a baby brainchild,” Davis recalls. “But, once we actually got to New York (to do the show), I was so inspired by the whole experience, it really solidified the idea for me and was just the spark I needed to try making it a reality.”
After a pause, he adds, “There are a lot of companies in town committed to producing new works, but that usually means new plays. Musicals get a little slighted, because they’re more expensive to do (and) the stakes are higher. This festival is a way of creating a new outlet for the musical-theater community in Atlanta, giving those artists an opportunity to be heard.”
What started as a “oneman job” for Davis has quickly expanded to include the support and involvement of many others on the local theater scene. He found a sponsor for the festival in Stephen Michael Brown, “a huge arts advocate and fan of musical theater, and a very generous financial backer.”
Davis also recruited a number of friends and colleagues in various artistic, administrative and advisory capacities. He advertised the festival through several trade publications and social media outlets, receiving more than 20 submissions from across the country, before narrowing the field down to the final four selections.
Coincidentally, rather than by design, all of them happen to be homegrown projects. “It wasn’t a case of only wanting to spotlight our own local talent. What ultimately appealed to us about these shows was that they each have their own style and sensibility, and they cover a wide range of serious and relevant themes and topics,” Davis observes.
Akil DuPont’s “Underground” is billed as “a slave story told through song,” set along the Underground Railroad circa 1850. Adapted by Hannah Church (from an 1892 short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman), with music and lyrics by Julia Goudreault, “The Yellow Wallpaper” addresses issues of mental health and gender inequality.
“The Fine Art of Forgetting,” scripted by Heidi Cline McKerley and composed by S. Renee Clark (music) and Jeff McKerley (lyrics), is about the midlife crisis of a woman dealing with her aging mother’s dementia. Co-written by Peacock and De Maria, “What’s Past” is another contemporary piece, Festival founder following two grown siblings as they unravel the mystery surrounding the death of their parents years earlier.
“Jeff and Renee and I have been collaborating on this show for seven years now, off and on, whenever we weren’t working on other projects,” admits Heidi Cline McKerley, who’s one of the busiest theater directors in town.
“The festival gave us a focus and put an extra fire under us to finally get it into a shape that could be submitted and seen,” she says. “It elevates what we’re doing and sort of gives us a trump card in terms of taking things to the next level. Hopefully, artistic directors from different theater companies will check it out and might be interested in developing it further or giving it a bona fide production.”
Because the shows are still very much works in progress, reactions and feedback from the general audience are equally important. As De Maria explains it, “At this stage, instead of hoping to have it produced somewhere on a larger scale, we’re mainly just interested in exposing our show to people, gauging their responses to what they like or maybe don’t like about it, and having the freedom to tweak things if we need to.”