AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

Today, Adam Gwon will receive the fourth annual Fred Ebb Award, the honor that's named for the late award-winning lyricist. It's been a big year for Gwon, whose musical Ordinary Days, recently bowed in London. Before its U.K. premiere, "Days" was one of eight musicals that were seen, in abbreviated form, at the National Alliance for Musical Theater's annual showcase of new musicals.

This morning, I was going through papers/programs etc. that build up all too readily in my world and came across the program for "Days," which I must admit charmed me no end in when I saw it back in October. As I'd paused with this program, partially because of the timing (strange to find it just as Gwon is receiving the award), I started looking through the programs for the other shows I caught during the two-day NAMT marathon. I smiled when thinking about The Cuban and the Redhead, Robert Bartley and Danny Whitman's musical take on Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball's early years together, and in particular Jenn Colella's performance which marvelously evoked the essence of the woman we all just know as "Lucy."

My musings then switched over to a musical in an entirely different vein – the jazz-y and slightly off-kilter Beatsville which features a grand score from Wendy Leigh Wilf. Based on Roger Corman flick, this show, with book by Glenn Slater, is really a beatnik riff that brings to mind another Corman movie that had a grand life as a musical, Little Shop of Horrors. From what I saw at NAMT, "Beatsville" shows real promise.

Among the other shows in the showcase that sprung back into my mind, Chryl L. Davis and Douglas J. Cohen's bio-tuner, Barnstormer, which looks at the life of African-American aviatrix Bessie Coleman, and Pamela's First Musical, a show long-aborning from the late Cy Coleman and Wendy Wasserstein and still being shepherded by their collaborator, lyricist David Zippel.

As if it weren't enough to digest eight musicals in some 24 hours, NAMT offers a songwriters showcase that features single numbers from promising writers. A couple of the shows here have already been seen by New York audiences – things like Kyle Jarrow's Hostage Song and People Are Wrong, which was seen a few years back at the Vineyard Theatre. I was particularly grateful to see that "Song" was getting exposure in front of national producers and presenters, and equally glad to know that the writers of the quirky "Wrong" are still at work on their piece. At the same time, getting to hear numbers from writers I didn't know – like Rob Baumgartner Jr. and the team of Sam Carner and Derek Gregor – was a real treat.

I'm not sure what NAMT might uncover between now and the fall of 2009, but they certainly know how to spot emerging talent and I'm already anxious to attend the next showcase.

For more information about NAMT, visit: www.namt.org. Adam Gwon also maintains a website - www.adamgwon.com - which includes some samples of his work, including Ordinary Days.