Tantrum Theater announces new musical development partnership with New York City’s Musical Theatre Factory

Tantrum Theater, Ohio University’s professional theater company, announces an innovative new collaborative partnership with Musical Theatre Factory (MTF), a leading non-profit organization focused on developing bold and inclusive new musicals by early career artists. The first new work from this partnership will be a developmental reading of the new musical Eighty-Sixed by Sam Salmond and Jeremy J. King, with a public performance on Jan. 18, 2020.

The partnership serves Tantrum Theater’s mission to bring world-class artists to work directly with students, and enhances the School of Theater’s longstanding commitment to developing new theater works through its boundary-pushing new musical theater track in the B.F.A. in Theater Performance.

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MTF is a vibrant and essential organization, whose sole mission is to develop new musicals and early career New York City theater-makers, while creating a deeply inclusive, organizational community dedicated to art-making to make change. MTF is a resident company of Playwrights Horizons, and has organizational partnerships with Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, Bushwick Starr, The Shed, JACK, and many other influential New York City non-profit theaters. They have also developed more than 130 new works and served over 900 artists in its five-year history, including Joe Iconis (Be More Chill) and Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop).

Emily Penick, Theater M.F.A. directing alum, collaborated with OHIO’s head of musical theater, Alan Patrick Kenny, to build this new collaborative partnership between MTF and OHIO.

“As a theatre professional focused mainly on developing new plays and musicals, I immediately recognized Alan’s visionary approach to the new musical theater curriculum,” Penick said. “A symbiotic developmental relationship then emerged, in which OHIO’s students could have a tangible bridge to the New York new musical scene, and MTF artists could benefit from the fantastic students, faculty, and resources at Ohio University.”

Kenny says, “While most of the performance opportunities for college students in musical theater programs focus on works of the past, most young professionals upon graduation will frequently participate in developing new works, which requires a very specialized skill set and the ability to collaborate with writers to create new forms and stories. I’m thrilled to set up this relationship with MTF to bring new works and brilliant artists to Athens to climb into the incubator with our students to build new things.”

This pipeline for new works currently in development by MTF will provide writers and creative teams a crucial step in the development process of their musicals away from the commercial and critical pressures of New York City, and will provide students across the School of Theater opportunities to lend their voices and talents to the refinement of word and music, and preparation for their first major production. MTF, Penick, Kenny, and Tantrum Theater plan collaborations on hand-picked projects already in development to serve both MTF’s programs and OHIO’s student artists.

“We at MTF are excited to build this relationship with OHIO and Tantrum, to share nationally our vision of making art that dismantles oppressive ideologies towards collective liberation,” MTF Producing Artistic Director Mei Ann Teo said.

The first project chosen to launch the new partnership will be a reading of the new musical “Eighty-Sixed,” a musical based on the novel by David B. Feinberg, with music and lyrics by Sam Salmond and book by Jeremy J. King. Set in the mid 1980s during the height of the AIDS crisis, “Eight-Sixed” is a story of friendship, intimacy, and fear amongst gay men in a changing world where human connection is difficult but more essential than ever before. King directs the reading of the musical after a week-long residence with Salmond, with Penick as dramaturg and Kenny serving as music director. A free public performance of the work will be held on Jan. 18, 2020 in Kantner Hall’s Baker Theater Stage. The residency concludes with a demo recording session featuring the student cast.

“Developing a new musical is exciting, but the long process can often leave creatives searching for ways to stay inspired,” King said. “When MTF approached us about a partnership with OHIO, we knew it would be the perfect way to inject ‘Eighty-Sixed’ with the fresh perspectives and renewed energy we need to move forward, while also encouraging new collaborators and audiences to look backward at this important time in our history.”

Teo adds, “Sam Salmond and Jeremy King's ‘Eighty-Sixed’ grapples with AIDS epidemic in New York City in the 1980's with humor and deep insight into the human condition, with themes of friendship, loss, and coming of age that will be resonant and powerful for the OHIO and Tantrum community.”

The reading of ‘Eighty-Sixed’ and potential future MTF-partnered workshops are produced by Tantrum Theater.

“The partnership with MTF provides great synergy between Tantrum’s mission and the curricular goals of our new musical theater program,” Michael Lincoln, artistic director of Tantrum and director of the School of Theater, noted. “ It is an exciting collaboration made possible by Tantrum’s residency in Athens.”

Ticketing information can be found online at https://www.ohio.edu/fine-arts/tantrum-theater.