Goodspeed Musicals’ latest Festival of New Musicals features readings of three new musicals-in-progress, cabaret shows by musical theater creators and numerous talks and panel discussions.
The shows, which take place Jan. 17-19, range from a family’s dysfunctional Christmas holiday to a fake boy band to the tale of Romeo and Juliet transplanted to New Orleans.
This year, with the Goodspeed Opera House undergoing major renovations, the festival is happening at the theater company’s other venue, the Terris Theatre in Chester, as well as at the nearby Chester Meeting House.
The three new musical readings this year are: “R&J: Fire on the Bayou” by Kevin Ramsey and Nygel D. Robinson, featuring a new version of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” set in present-day Louisiana during Mardi Gras (Friday at 7:30 p.m.); “Oy Band” with book, music and lyrics by Bonnie Gleicher, in which four Orthodox Jewish girls disguise themselves as a boy band (Saturday at 7:30 p.m.); and “The Carol of the Bells” with book, music and lyrics by Nevada Lozano, about a family named Bell having a largely dysfunctional Christmas holiday together (Sunday at 1 p.m.).
The cabaret performances are essentially two more musicals performed solo by their creators. Oliver Houser’s “Wunderkind” is described by Goodspeed as “set in a Jewish American family in the early 20th century” with “Hans, a young piano prodigy endeavoring to break free of his father’s crippling expectations and claim his creative voice.” Houser performs it on Friday at 10:30 p.m. at the Terris Theatre.
Cheeyang Ng’s “Legendary” is about the writer/composer’s own cultural journey of moving to America. It will be performed Saturday at 10 p.m. at the Terris Theatre.
“The Carol of the Bells,” was previously done as a cabaret performance last year. That’s becoming a new tradition at the festival. Last year’s reading of the musical “Letters to the President” took place a year after a festival cabaret performance of some of the same material.
The performers in the readings include students at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School. The experience of performing works-in-progress in front of a live audience at one of the country’s key development centers for new American musical theater is a key part of their Hartt education.
One of the writer/composers in this year’s festival has been an adjunct professor at the Hartt School and has performed in Connecticut numerous times as the musical director of shows at theaters throughout the state. Robinson is the co-adaptor, co-composer and co-lyricist with Ramsey for “R&J: Fire on the Bayou.”
Connecticut audiences saw Robinson onstage last month playing piano as the onstage music director of Whitney White’s “Macbeth in Stride” at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
“She brought me in over the summer,” Robinson said of White. “She wanted to do something different with the show since she’d last done it. My first performance with it was at Yale.”
He had a similar pianist/music director role in the Billie Holiday bio-musical “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” at Playhouse on Park in West Hartford in 2022. It was while he was at Playhouse on Park that he connected with Ramsey.
“The director there said ‘I brought a friend I want you to meet.’” Sometime after that, “he reached out to me, out of the blue. I had done some songs about ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ He’d been working on a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ set in New Orleans. It was super-collaborative: I had songs written, he had a concept.”
Robinson was able to come to grips with some of the modern themes he saw in the Shakespeare play when he worked as music director on Hansol Jung’s modern verse translation of “Romeo and Juliet” at Two River Theater in New Jersey.
Goodspeed Musicals has also expressed interest in another Robinson and Ramsey musical theater project, “Mexodus,” the score of which has been released as a concept album.
“I’m a musician who got into theater,” said Robinson, who took piano lessons as a child and gained his first paying musical gigs from playing at his church. From that he eased into theater. “I was too shy to be onstage but I got bit by that bug. I started out acting in high school then moved to New York. I accompanied myself at auditions then started playing out more often.”
Robinson said the lyrics for “R&J: Fire on the Bayou” are “an amalgam of rap, lyricism, Shakespeare … all the key folks are in it.” There are some noteworthy changes, however. In this version, Juliet has a single parent. There is Lady Montague but no Lord Montague. “As Kevin says, the story’s already there. It’s pretty much the same,” Robinson said. “There is a transition from the high language, and of course ‘Fair Verona’ is now ‘Fair New Orleans.’ We’re expanding on certain things, mainly the magical aspect of the show.”
When developing “R&J: Fire on the Bayou,” Robinson said, “we were always asking ‘Why? Why? Why? Why the violence? Why does Juliet feel that way? What’s happening in these children’s minds?’”
Will Robinson be playing piano at the reading of his own musical, as he has done for musicals by so many others? “No, my good friend John Bronson will play piano at the reading, so I’ll be able to sit back and listen to it and watch the reactions.”
The 2025 Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals takes place Jan. 17-19 with performances at the Terris Theatre, 33 North Main St., Chester and other events at the Chester Meeting House, 4 Liberty St., Chester. Access to all festival events is $125 for the weekend. Tickets to all three readings are $75. Single tickets are $30 ($15 students) for readings and $20 for the cabaret performances. goodspeed.org.
