The National Music Theater Network will announce its spring 1998 performance schedule and honor its guest artistic director, choreographer Graciela Daniele, at a champagne party April 6 from 4:30-6 PM at Glorious Food in Manhattan.

Also at the party, NMT will celebrate the launch of its new website at www.BroadwayUSA.org.

NMTN's founder, Tim Jerome, will announce the Broadway USA program, a new national series of staged musical readings. The three musicals read in New York in May and June will then be presented in seven regional theatres, located in Philadelphia, Ithaca, NY, Urbana, IL, Seattle, Daytona Beach, FL, Palm Springs, CA, and Los Angeles.

Organizers of the gala are promising such Broadway luminaries as actors Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman, Judy Kaye, Lynette Perry, Robert Cuccioli, Donna Murphy, Lillias White, George Hearn, Deborah Gibson, Chuck Wagner, Douglas Sills, Rebecca Luker, Victor Garber, writers Michael-John LaChiusa, William Finn, Galt MacDermot, Lynn Aherns, Stephen Flaherty, Sheldon Harnick, and choreographer Rob Marshall.

The National Music Theater Network was founded in 1983 to find and promote new American musicals. -- By Christine Ehren