Posted: 7/23/15 at 2:34am
Monday was a good NYMF day.
WOMEN OF NOTE 
i think the best edition NYMF has put together for this series - i think it's the 3rd or 4th year for it (it was called Music Box in the past). Jen Bender and her team and honorary chair Jeanine Tesori put together an awesome night of songs written or co-written by women, and got some great star power to perform it.
At 4pm Monday, i saw the 11th of the 10 developmental readings:
iLLA
It's a hip-hop musical, and far more staged than your ordinary staged reading... and it is WONDERFUL. To me, this is why we go to these festivals and readings - every so often there is something new and delightful, and it is such a joy. It's not a perfect, finished work, that performance was the 1st time the writers had seen it in front of an audience - and it got such a standing ovation that if one of the producers hadn't come out to talk, we might have made them late for their 8pm performance. It's hip-hop/rap music with musical theatre references (SWEENEY TODD, SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, and Ahrens and Flaherty all get shout outs in rap lyrics). Its ancestry definitely includes both FAME and PASSING STRANGE, and there are some muddled plot points, and our protagonist's family is a bit cliche... but, if you can get into the 5pm reading tomorrow (sold out but there's always a waitlist) GO!
Tomorrow is SINGLE WIDE and probably HELD MOMENTARILY , or maybe SONGS FOR THE FALLEN, i'm undecided. :)
Saturday will be WHAT DO CRITICS KNOW, MANUEL VS STATUE, and FOOLERIE
wheee..!
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