The line-up for the New York Musical Theatre Festival’s prestigious Next Link programme has just been announced and two of the ten shows hail from Calgary! The first is Joe Slabe’s Crossing Swords (formerly titled Jeremy de Bergerac) which premiered in Calgary in 2012 at Forte Musical Theatre Guild. The second is a flash from the past, David Rhymer and Blake Brooker’s Mata Hari: Tigress at the City Gate, which graced One Yellow Rabbit’s stage a few times in the late 90′s.
This is Joe’s second successful Festival entry, the last one being Austentatious, which played there in 2007 and was remounted here in 2010. Onalea Gilbertson’s Blanche: The Bittersweet Life of a Wild Prairie Dame (recently seen at Lunchbox as part of this year’s High Performance Rodeo) played there in 2011.
The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) is the flagship program of The National Music Theater Network. Now entering its tenth year, NYMF exists to “revitalize musical theatre culture by discovering and promoting new musical theatre artists, producers and projects; nurturing a vibrant and innovative artistic community; and connecting one of America’s greatest art forms with a diverse, contemporary audience.”
The Festival runs July 8th to 28th in (of course) the Big Apple. For details see Playbill.com.
Way to go Joe, David and Blake! We’ll be there with you in spirit, if not in the flesh.
