Emerging musical theatre writers in New York University's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program will present pieces of their developing work to an invited audience at Goodspeed Opera House Dec. 7, following a performance of A Little Night Music.

As part of its mission to foster emerging artists, Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, CT, has been hosting 20 students from NYU for a retreat since Dec. 4. While at Goodspeed, the students have been working on their thesis projects. The student activities and the Dec. 7 informal cabaret of their original material are supervised by the Tony Award-winning librettist and lyricist-composer William Finn (Falsettos, A New Brain), a teacher in the NYU program, and Sara Schlesinger (Swing Shift, Love Comics, The Ballad of Little Jo), director of the program, along with several NYU faculty members.

NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program offers an curriculum of seminars, labs and rehearsals on writing for the musical theatre taught by professionals in the industry.  The two-year program is the only one of its kind in the country to offer an MFA degree to its graduates.

Goodspeed Musicals is the Tony Award-honored nonprofit that revives and/or revises classic musicals and gives voice to new writers on two stages: Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, CT, and The Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, CT.

The Goodspeed revival of A Little Night Music, directed by Darko Tresnjak, continues to Dec. 16. Tresnjak has juts been announced to direct Goodspeed's revival of King of Hearts in 2002. — By Kenneth Jones