The Wicker Husband a new British musical written by Rhys Jennings and Darren Clark, will be one of eight new musicals presented at the 30th Annual NAMT Festival of New Musicals in New York City later this month
Since 1989, the Festival has introduced 334 musicals and 543 writers to those with the resources and expertise to produce and develop musical theatre worldwide. Shows presented at NAMT in previous years includeThe Drowsy Chaperone, Ordinary Days, Songs For A New World, Ruthless, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Come From Away.
This year, from 226 submissions, a committee of 17 theatre professionals have chosen just the eight pieces to be presented in 45-minute concert presentations. All production costs for the presentations are underwritten by NAMT, at no cost to the writing teams.
The Wicker Husband is based on an original short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, and combines puppetry and a folk score by award-winning composer and lyricist Darren Clark. With book by Rhys Jennings and direction and dramaturgy by Charlotte Westenra, the show has been workshopped at some of the UK’s leading drama schools – RWCMD, Guildhall and Trinity Laban – and in 2016 it won the Stiles and Drewe Mentorship Award, receiving a full reading at The Other Palace in April last year.
The show will be presented at the New World Stages Theatre, NY on Thursday 25th October at 11:20am and again on Friday 26th October at 3:10pm. Casting details will be announced on the NAMT website soon.
For those in the UK who would like to hear more from The Wicker Husband, every day this coming week the writers will be releasing a filmed demo recording from the show, beginning with “My Wicker Man”, sung by Alex Young on Monday 15th October. Other performers throughout the week will include Clive Rowe, Rebecca Trehearn and Tyrone Huntley.
Follow The Wicker Husband on Twitter or Facebook to see them first.
