<p>Gemini The Musical - Click here: Gemini the Musical - one out of 18 chosen from over 300 submissions to perform at the NY Musical Theatre Festival - 9/17-10/07. Music by C.Gilbert (Head of UArts M/T), Lyrics by C. Gilbert &
A. Innaurato, Book by A. Innaurato.</p>
<p>CONGRATS!!!</p>
<p>How exciting, mainstage! Is your child in this show? Sorry, I can't keep everyone's kids straight on CC. :) Add this to camge's son's show Tully which was also chosen for the NYMTF this year, and is full of Tisch kids, and I'd say that CC kids are doing well in this relatively new but highly regarded festival in the city. The submissions this year reached 400, the highest yet. Congratulations to all these talented kids!</p>
<p>With Glee, also in the NYMTF, is directed by a recent graduate of Tisch (Playwrights Horizons) as well. Actually it is written by graduates of Tisch's Graduate Musical Theater Writing program.</p>
<p>The director of Gemini the Musical (post #1) is a Tisch graduate as well.</p>
<p>I do not believe there are any students from UArts in Gemini. There are graduates of CMU, CCM, and BOCO in that production, however.</p>
<p>AlwaysAMom...I think Mainstage was posting about the show as her D attends UArts and the head of that program wrote the music for Gemini the Musical, not that her D or any other UArts students are in it.</p>
<p>Ah, okay, Susan, thanks. I didn't notice in the title of the thread that it mentioned it was UArts MT Head. I guess I wasn't totally awake when I read that! :) </p>
<p>It's a wonderful festival and although its well-known success stories for Altar Boyz, title of show, The Big Voice, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, among others, are great, so many wonderful things happen as a result of this festival, for the actors, directors, writers and other theatre kids involved through the valuable contacts made, but also for the tens of thousands of theatre fans who are fortunate enough to get to see new works debuted in full-out productions in the city.</p>
<p>You WERE awake alwaysamom. The thread title has been changed since its original posting. It had been misleading and Mainstage had corrected the meaning in a subsequent post. Rather than leave up her "correction post", I took that down and readjusted the thread title to be more accurate.</p>
<p>Soozievt above quote,
"I do not believe there are any students from UArts in Gemini. There are graduates of CMU, CCM, and BOCO in that production, however." </p>
<p>In all fairness...... we can not be 100% sure of this statement. :)</p>
<p>Also, thank you CollegeMom. ;)</p>
<p>I suppose I do not know if that is 100% accurate, you are correct. I just read the bios of the cast and went by that. Some are older than students and some provide the schools from which they graduated. None appeared to be current students in college, let alone at UArts. As well, none mention UArts as the school where they earned a degree. But if there are UArts STUDENTS in the show, let us know. That would be hard to do while attending college in Philly I would think. When AlwaysAMom was asking if your D was in the show, I commented that STUDENTS (which your D is) do not appear to be in that show. That is all that I meant. I was not speaking of GRADUATES with regard to UArts, though spoke of graduates of CMU, CCM, and BOCO in Gemini. I don't see GRADUATES of UArts mentioned but not everyone puts their college in their bio. I don't see current college aged students in the cast bios.</p>
<p>One of one the members of my coaching staff is in GEMINI & I'm going to see it on the 28th. I'll report back! (I'm also seeing several other shows that friends and colleagues are in.)</p>
<p>it should be a great show! if i weren't busy with rehearsals, crew, classes, etc etc etc, i would definitely take the train to NYC for the weekend to see Charlie's show....but I am a dedicated UArts student, so I must do my school work haha</p>
<p>for those who don't know, Charlie wrote the original book to Assassins that Stephen Sondheim wrote. Charlie is quite the accomplished composer and writer, as well as teacher!</p>
<p>Can someone familiar with the festival explain it a bit? Are performances open to the public? Are shows that are performed there likely to open on Broadway?</p>
<p>Here is a link to the website for the festival, that tells about the shows. Yes, it is open to the public.
<a href="http://www.nymf.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.nymf.org/</a></p>
<p>anothermom, the website will fill you in on the mission and history but basically the raison d'etre for the NYMTF is to present new works, which otherwise may never get the chance to be produced. No, the shows are not likely to open on Broadway but a few have made the move to off-Broadway productions. Those are the ones I mentioned in my previous post. Musicals on Broadway typically require a minimum of a $10 million investment these days. This is why such a large number of them have backers with very deep pockets, and also why it is such a rarity that original works open in Broadway houses. </p>
<p>Still, it is possible to see excellent new works at NYMTF, for relatively low prices and attendance is usually in the 30-40,000 range. This is why it is such a wonderful opportunity for the young playwrights and directors, like camge's son. The contacts they make and the exposure they get is difficult to duplicate outside the context of a festival like this. </p>
<p>Broadwaywannabe, while it's true that Charlie had the idea for Assassins, the book for the musical was written by John Weidman. :)</p>
<p>Wow- it looks really wonderful, and such a great opportunity for both the public to see new works, and for the artists to present new things. Thank you for the link.</p>
<p>I am going to be in Intervention at NYMF. It's under the special event category.</p>
<p>Actually, alwaysamom, I believe broadwaywannabe is correct. As I understand the history of it, Charles Gilbert wrote the book for the original Assasins circa 1977-1979 which was then produced and staged in 1979 as a full length musical by Theater Express in Pittsburgh with funding from the Ford Foundation. He then tried unsuccessfully to get additional backing and support to further develop the show through the Musical Theater Lab in New York. In 1988 Stephen Sundheim acquired from Gilbert the right to use Gilbert's original idea and developed it into the Assassins of today.</p>
<p>I think you are all right :D from what I have read, but are not all talking about the same thing in your statements. From what I have read, yes, Charles Gilbert, as a young playwright, wrote a script of Assassins. Later Sondheim acquired the rights of Gilbert's original idea and John Weidman wrote the book of the musical Assassins which went to Broadway. So the statements made about Charles Gilbert writing the original script and then another statement that John Weidman wrote the book of the musical, Assassins, both seem like correct statements all the way around. :)</p>
<p>MichaelNKat, what I was referencing was that the book for the musical (as we and all theatre fans know it!) Assassins was, indeed, written by John Weidman and not Charlie Gilbert. Yes, Gilbert did write a play on the subject of assassins but I suppose if we really want to get to the truly original source, we'd have to credit whomever wrote the book he discovered in the library in Pittsburgh, a collection of biographical sketches about assassins which inspired him to write his play. :) I'm not attempting in any way to minimize Charlie Gilbert's talents but writers/composers/choreographers, etc. are very, very particular about being credited for their work and John Weidman is the individual who should be credited with the book for Assassins. :) The show has had an interesting and wonderful evolution from those early days and I'm sure that Charlie has great fondness and pride for the Sondheim musical.</p>
<p>I don't disagree with anything you've said - including that for most musicals the genesis for the idea often comes from literature of another genre. My point was simply that Broadwaywannabe was correct in stating the the script/ book for the ORIGINAL Assassins (and she did use the term "original") was indeed written by Charles Gilbert (which was in fact produced and staged with a grant from the Ford Foundation) and that his work served as the source idea for the later incarnation of Assassins written in collaboration by Sondheim and Weidman. Two very related but different shows, two different books, one an evolution from the first, one more popular and known today but the first also known to many theatre fans, and perhaps the history reflecting some interesting insights to the nature of the business as a "business".</p>
<p>And none of this should really distract from the original subject of this thread - Gemini Live by Innaurato and Gilbert at the NYMTF</p>
<p>I agree that this side discussion shouldn't detract from the OP! :) I think that it is simply a matter of semantics in the way Broadwaywannabe expressed the comment. It may seem a simple thing to many, but to theatre artists, credits like this are very important and held very dear. Had the sentence simply said that Charlie wrote the original script on which the Sondheim musical was based, it wouldn't be an issue at all, but to word it the way it was expressed, it could be. I agree, not a huge issue obviously, but still an interesting discussion about an aspect of this business which we don't talk about much on CC. It reminds me of the contentious choreography and plagiarism disputes and litigation last year by the Broadway originators of Urinetown and a couple of regional productions. There's always lots of drama where theatre people are involved! :)</p>