The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop Highlights Emerging Broadway Talent

On Monday, April 1, the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop held a special performance of memorable songs created during this year’s workshop at the quaint Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater in New York City. This esteemed workshop has been cultivating rising talent since 1961 and fostered some of the brilliant minds behind a variety of notable award-winning shows such as Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon, A Chorus Line, Raisin and Nine.

Thanks to Pat Cook, Senior Director of Jazz & Musical Theatre at BMI, and Frederick Freyer, Workshop Administrator, emerging composers, lyricists, and librettists debuted their never-before-heard works to an eager audience. Among these lyricists and composers were Phoebe Kreutz and Daniel Israel (Holy Crap: The Worst Parts of the Bible), Janine McGuire and Arri Lawton Simon (Borders), Jessica Fleitman and Rick Bassett (The Average Sized Mermaid), Jae Broderick and André McRae (Speechless), Oliver Houser (XY), Erin Murray Quinlan (God Save Queen Pam), Christian Duhamel and Ayumi Okada (The Uncivil Ones), Jae Broderick and Dylan MarcAurele (The Santa Clause), Laura Kleinbaum and Willem Oosthuysen (#Mars), Tia DeShazor and Andy Roninson (The Rocket Thrower), Benjamin Velez (Borderline), Sam Wessels and Marc Chan (George), Jack Coen (Joe Jenkins Before The Galactic High-Court of Consciousness), and Sami Horneff and Ben Diskant (The Pirate Princess). The showcase consisted of 17 original compositions ranging from heartwarming ballads to comedic bits.