This year, We Foxes by Ryan Scott Oliver will be among the five new musicals brought to life at the Village Theatre‘s Festival of New Musicals. Through the creative collaboration of nearly 75 artists and writers, performed and directed by the region’s foremost theatre professionals and guest artists from across the country, it will be the first Festival of New Musicals led by newly appointed Associate Artistic Director Brandon Ivie.
The Festival of New Musicals provides an essential platform for writers to incorporate a key component of Live Theatre: the audience. Each new musical will be rehearsed throughout the week, then presented to the Festival’s audience in staged reading format, fully sung using scripts. Though readings are not open to the general public, audiences are partly comprised of Village Originals members who are asked to participate in moderated talkbacks and provide written feedback and constructive critiques of the work, thereby becoming an integral part of the developmental process.
Village Theatre will welcome to Issaquah the critically-acclaimed musical theatre writers at the helm of the new works, who will convene from across the country for the three-day event. “I’m so pleased with the five shows we will have in residence for the festival,” says Festival Producer and Associate Artistic Director Brandon Ivie. “While all are at different stages in their development and vastly varied in style, these writers are all incredibly sophisticated with exceedingly unique voices, and are an inspiring testament to the future of the American Musical.”
RSO’s WE FOXES takes place in the small town of Havoc, Missouri at the onset of World War II. A tough, unmannered orphan girl is plucked up from her vagabond life and adopted into a world of style and social graces by the beloved wife of the local sheriff. But in her new, unfamiliar life, she begins to discover that there are sinister secrets beneath the shiny veneer of this small town. Her adopted mother is not who she seems to be, and people are lurking in the dark. This gothic musical thriller follows one girl’s struggle to summon courage and survive at all costs.
Other new musicals of the festival include COSTS OF LIVING (Book, Music, and Lyrics by Timothy Huang), HOW TO BREAK (Book and Lyrics by Aaron Gaffers), STRING (Book by Sarah Hammond, Music and Lyrics by Adam Gwon), WRITING Kevin Taylor (Music and Lyrics by Will Van Dyke, Book and Lyrics by Josh Halloway).