BMI Announces Musical Highlights of Spring Smoker Presentation
By Adam Hetrick
15 Apr 2008
Fourteen new musicals will be featured in the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop Spring Smoker on April 17.
The 5:30 PM Spring Smoker presentation, open to workshop and industry members, will take place in the Media Room of BMI's New York office. The title was derived from workshop moderator Maury Yeston's informal music gatherings while an undergraduate.
Spring Smoker is produced by the workshop's artistic coordinator, Patrick Cook, and Frank Evans, BMI-Lehman Engel's special events coordinator.
Among the works slated for presentation are the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award-winning musical See Rock City & Other Destinations, penned by Brad Alexander and Adam Mathias. Railroad Man creators Thomas Allen and Steven Randoy are represented with the song "Thirty-Five Weeks," performed by Scott Fedderly (Ragtime, Grease).
Chicago's Raymond Bokhour has teamed with lyricist Simon Gray to adapt Nikokai Erdman's The Suicide for the stage. Performing selections will be Bokhour and fellow BMI members Lisa Bianchi and Kenny Fine.
Composer and lyricist Andy Monroe is set to perform "A Really Nice Guy" from his musical Drive. The song "It's the Drugs" will highlight Dan Israel and Phoebe Kreutz's musical The Dirty Hippie Jam Band Project, while Forbidden Broadway alumnus Kevin B. McGlynn will be on hand to perform a selection from The Thing About Joe, penned by Randy Klein and Matthew Hardy.
Also on tap are selections from The Masked Zinfandel with a score by Peter Yarin and lyrics by Justin Warner – who is also at work with Rob Kendt on another Spring Smoker inclusion: Wood. Jenifer Foote of A Chorus Line will perform the title song from Stephen Sislen and Ben H. Winters' Room 16.
The final two entries include The Last Hard Score by David Spencer and book by Jerry James – represented with the song "Because I Can" performed by Kurt Robbins (Infertility) – and Chris Boal and Andrew Sherman's short musical Livestock.
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Founded by Lehman Engel in 1961, the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, fully funded by the BMI foundation at no cost to its participants, was created in order to nurture the craft of musical theatre by providing new writers with a testing ground for their work under the guidance of experienced professionals within the industry.
Notable alumni and members include Maury Yeston (Titanic, Grand Hotel, Nine), Alan Menken (Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid), Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez (Avenue Q), Edward Kleban (A Chorus Line), Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime, Once on This Island, Dessa Rose), Gerard Alessandrini (Forbidden Broadway) and Michael John LaChiusa (Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party).
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