Help us give new voices an audience. Now!
These extraordinary times in which we find ourselves have compelled us to look at how we can support more new voices to tell their stories in the musical theatre form. And to do it NOW.
In response to this call, NMI is in the process of launching the NOW! Campaign which is made up of several major initiatives to nurture the voices of underserved communities including veterans, writers of color, LGBTQ writers, young writers, and Deaf performers.
We’re honored to have received seed money from the California Arts Council, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Jose and Helen Colton Foundation, and The National Arts and Disability Center (NADC) at UCLA…but this support has allowed us just to get started! Now we need your help to strengthen and deepen these programs.
As you continue on this page, you will find more detailed descriptions of each of these new programs.
We hope that you will join us in supporting these new voices.
New Musicals Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation (FEIN #01-0745909),
so your donation via this page is entirely tax-deductible.
Veterans' Program
We are thrilled to be the recipients of grants from the California Arts Council AND the Helen and Jose Colton Foundation to develop a musical webseries honoring veterans in their own words. Their generosity is allowing us to film the first SIX episodes of the series. There’s an honorarium for veterans whose stories are chosen for the webseries, as well as opportunities for writers/composers who are either interested in supporting veterans, or are veterans themselves.
We’re hoping to be able to complete the first season, by developing and filming the remaining six episodes. Each episode costs us about $5000 to develop and shoot. Would you help us to raise $30,000 additonal dollars for this important, and moving program?
AMPLIFY: A Mentor Program
AMPLIFY - the Musical Theatre Mentor program at New Musicals Inc. - pairs musical theatre mentors with undiscovered and underserved writers who can’t afford to enroll in programs at NMI.
For the first wave of this program, we will be working with black mentors and black writers.
Mentors work with writers for ten weeks, one-on-one, an hour a week, to create whatever. Whether it’s just a song or two, or something more structured, is entirely up to the writer and the mentor to figure out. The focus is on expression, on creating, on process, not on product.
NMI’s vision is to present whatever comes out of the Musical Theatre Mentor program in an online showcase — some combination of live performers or prerecorded-from-remote locations.
Both the mentor and the writer receive $2000 each. Can you help sponsor a mentor and/or a writer?
Deaf Actors program
We have been thrilled this season to work with Deaf actors in four very special episodes of our musical webseries, “Tales from the Darkening Wood.” After some initial workshops with Deaf West Theatre, our Executive Director, Scott Guy, studied ASL specifically to be able to work with these actors, to explore the artform of musical theatre for the Deaf.
Now this fall, we are the recipients of a grant from California Arts Council to produce a 12-minute film featuring some of these actors, in a spooky musical fable called, “Burning the Cradle.”
We have just begun seeking funds for additional films with Deaf actors. Would you like to help?
New Voices Project
Our New Voices Project features musical theatre of writers under the age of 26. We conduct a national search, and reach out to hundreds of universities and colleges. For the finalists, we offer workshops, feedback, and concert presentations. Often we’ll invite industry professionals to join us for our feedback sessions — theatre producers and film and TV executives, who nurture the writers with supportive but constructive advice.
We also offer a limited number of scholarships for college students or very-recent grads, to our Core Curriculum. This is your chance to sponsor a young aspiring musical theatre writer (scholarships are typically between $1000-$2000).
Eighty Years of Sparks
Our Founding Director, John Sparks, turns eighty in less than a year. Eighty! We’re celebrating this once-in-his-lifetime event with a spectacular Virtual Birthday Party for John on June 24, 2021.
Buy a ticket, or a pair of tickets, or an entire virtual “table”, and you will be rewarded with a fabulous event, some great perks, and the opportunity to support the new programming of our NOW! Campaign that will take this organization forward into the NEXT 80 years!
For more info on this event, please visit 80 YEARS!
Direct your donation.
Thanks in advance for your donation. Would you like it to go towards one of the specific programs listed above? When you make your donation, just indicate in the comment field where you would like to direct your donation and we will take care of it. If you don’t make a specific direction, we will make sure your generous donation goes where it is most needed.
New Musicals Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation (FEIN #01-0745909), so your donation via this page is entirely tax-deductible.