The Yale Institute for Music Theatre has named the two shows it’ll workshop this summer. The two-week “intensive lab setting” development process culminates in a staged reading of each new musical, presented in association with the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.
Mighty Five’s Infinite Funk Odyssey concerns “Fuzzbot, a robotic dance instructor without a soul” out to reactivate his “Soul Circuit” and restore “the greatest dance party in the universe.” Music and lyrics are by Zach Abramson and Derek Munro, both of whom attended the Manhattan School of Music. The book is by current Yale School of Drama Theater Management student Xaq Webb and the late poet/musician/comedian Phil Aulie (an Austin-based artistic whirlwind who died in January at the age of 25). An earlier version of the show was staged at the Blue Theatre in Austin, Texas, from whence this video clip comes:
Mortality Play, about a frustrated 14th century rock musician, has music by Scotty Arnold and book and lyrics by Alana Jacoby, pictured here:
Mortality Play was staged last year at Ars Nova’s AntFest with a four people in the cast and another four in a live rock band.
Both Mighty Five and Mortality Play will workshop at Yale from June 4-17; the readings happen at 1 &5 p.m. June 16 & 17. Tickets and info here.
The Yale Institute for Music Theatre is overseen by director Mark Brokaw, whose own new-musical credits include directing the Broadway production of Cry-Baby and the acclaimed Huntington Theatre try-out of Marty. He also directed Pop!, the Andy Warhol Factory musical which was workshopped at one of the first Institute for Music Theatre labs and later became part of the 2009-10 Yale Repertory Theatre season.