Current Development Projects
Award Winning Choreographer Josh Prince’s Developmental Lab of CURTAIN UP!
Curtain Up! is an exhilarating new show featuring classic musical theatre overtures interpreted in dance. Utilizing selections both famous and forgotten, Broadway choreographer Josh Prince (Beautiful; Shrek) treats audiences to an unforgettable evening of dance, reimagining and interpreting over twenty beloved musical theatre overtures. By taking the overtures out of their original show’s context, Josh Prince transforms and reimagines each piece through dance, giving it new life and new interpretation. No longer is the overture just the prelude to the show, it IS the show, and the perfect foundation for Prince’s creative, quirky and exuberant choreography. Curtain Up is Contact meets Disney’s Fantasia meets Broadway! Experience your favorite Broadway overtures as you’ve never seen them before!
For this six-week development lab, 76% of the entire budget will go directly towards the salaries of the dancers and choreographers. Wherever possible, SYC Develop Initiative will work with other artistic non-profit organizations to facilitate the needs of the workshop including administrative staffing and rehearsal space rental.
New York Theatre Barn Development Residency of Sam's Room February 2023
Sam’s Room is a new musical with Book by Dale Sampson with Trey Coates-Mitchell and Music and Lyrics by Cailtin Bell, Marc Campbell, and Dale Sampson. Sam’s Room is inspired by real stories of non-speaking autistic teens who find a way to communicate. This pop concert dramedy follows Sam, a teenager in 1998 with nonspeaking special needs, on his path to find a way to communicate. Shifting between cruel reality and pop star fantasy, Sam’s Room powerfully reveals the universal struggle with communication by giving a voice to someone who’s never had one.
NYTB will collaborate with The Cell and Red Mountain Theatre Company to create a week-long, community-focused residency for the writers to explore the nonspeaking role of Sam through the participation of multiple disabled and non-disabled artists. Celebrating disabled artists without seeing disability as a monolith, the residency will explore how various forms of communication may inform clarity in the nonspeaking, verbal, physical and musical storytelling in the show. The writers also have a relationship with Bennett Key, a 21-year-old nonspeaking man with Joubert Syndrome and are bringing him on as a writing partner on the show, with the goal of making the writing team more inclusive. This residency will provide the time, space and financial support necessary for the team to meet in
New York and work in the same room.
SYCDI's participation helped change the budget of this workshop so that all involved will be paid a competitive wage for their development time.