NEXT 25 x 25

NEXT 25 X 25 : Supporting the development of 25 new musicals or plays with music by 2025

TLD’s deep investment in the future of the American musical theater through the NEXT 25 x 25 initiative is only possible because of the generosity of our philanthropic partners. To learn more about support opportunities or make a donation to support this work, click the donate button below, or contact our staff at development@latteda.org.

We support the development of new musicals and plays with music in the following ways:

Commissions: Paying writers to create the work. TLD may initiate the conversation, or the creative team may initiate the conversation. 

Residencies: Bringing the creative team together. Residencies may take place locally or remotely, or in conjunction with a locally based workshop.

Workshops: Bringing together and compensating creative team members with actors, directors, music directors and sometimes audiences as part of the new work development process.

NEXT Festival: Our annual Festival provides a 2 week combined residency and workshop opportunity for  3 - 4 creative teams each summer.  Each project culminates in two public presentations.

If you are an artist interested in developing your work in NEXT 25 X 25, please contact Director of New Work, Elissa Adams elissa@latteda.org

NEXT 25 x 25 NEW WORKS

YOKO’S HUSBAND’S KILLER’S JAPANESE WIFE, GLORIA

Book by Brandy Hoang Collier
Music by Erika Ji
Lyrics by Clare Fuyuko Bierman

Did Yoko Ono really break up The Beatles? Was Gloria Abe Chapman somehow responsible for John Lennon’s murder? Why do all these egotistical white guys marry Asian women? That’s weird, right? These are the questions that keep Ruby Okamoto up at night. She needs answers, and she’s gonna find them—even if it means summoning Yoko, Gloria, and the rest of Asian America into her insomniatic fever dream.

(Workshop; 2024)

OKUNI

Book by Naomi Iizuka and Paul Hodge
Lyrics by Paul Hodge and Naomi Iizuka
Music by Paul Hodge

Okuni tells the story of the enigmatic woman from 16th century Japan who created Kabuki and has since been forgotten by history. The pop culture sensation of her day, Okuni staged performances in the dry riverbeds of Kyoto and the castles of the daimyo. Her work was erotic and politically dangerous, challenging conventions of gender, class, and polite society both on stage and off. 

(Residency; 2024)

BLACKOUT

Book by Steven Gallagher
Music & Lyrics by Anton Lipovetsky

On August 14th, 2003, Toronto was plunged into chaos when the largest blackout in North American history left millions stranded in the dark. Inspired by real events, Blackout tells three stories of hope, resilience, and connection that unfold when the city is dark, and strangers band together to find the light. Commissioned by The Musical Stage Company.

(Workshop; 2023)

CHRISTMAS AT THE LOCAL

Featuring Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales
Composed by Cerys Matthews and Mason Neely 
and “The Longing for Amazing Peace”*
Music by Chastity Brown and Text by Dr. Maya Angelou
Directed by Larissa Kokernot and Peter Rothstein
Music Direction and Orchestrations by Jason Hansen

After receiving a workshop at the 2019 NEXT Festival, Theater Latté Da staged the world premiere of this rollicking new celebration of the season in 2022, featuring the words of Dylan Thomas and Dr. Maya Angelou, with music by local singer-songwriter Chastity Brown, and Welsh artists Cerys Matthews and Mason Neely. The production featured Phinehas Bynum, Spencer Chandler, Joy Dolo, Bradley Greenwald, Jason Hansen, Elizabeth Reese, Matt Riehle, and Quinn Shadko. On a cold winter’s night, a group of locals gather to raise a glass and play a tune, calling forth the spirit of the holidays through story and song. Voices blend, memories are rekindled, and a bit of mystery hangs in the air.

(NEXT Festival 2019; Artist Commission 2022; World Premiere 2022)

*Copyright © 2022 Caged Bird Legacy (ASCAP)

DEAR AMERICA

Music, Lyrics & Book by Paulo K Tiról
Direction & Book by Noam Shapiro
Based on the memoir Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas 

Paulo K Tirol and Noam Shapiro adapt this moving memoir by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. Vargas, who has been called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms.

(Writers' Residency 2023)

JOHNNY SKEEKY 
OR A REMEDY FOR EVERYTHING
(formerly JOHNNY SCHICCHI)

Music by Giacomo Puccini
Words by Bradley Greenwald and Steven Epp

Twin Cities artistic treasures Bradley Greenwald and Steven Epp’s English language adaptation of Giacomo Puccini’s one-act comic opera, Gianni Schicchi. A farce where greed and hypocrisy face off against first love and old friendship, set on the deck of a tricked-out yacht anchored off the coast of Miami.

(Artist Commission 2020; Developmental Workshop 2021; NEXT Festival 2022; World Premiere 2024)

LA LLORONA: A ZARZUELA OF LA FRONTERA: A BORDER STORY IN MUSIC

Songs and Libretto by Celeste Moreno
Arrangements by Bethany Brinton
Direction and Dramaturgy by Crystal Manich

In a graveyard north of the Rio Grande, a woman is awakened from death after sixteen years.  She claws herself out of her grave.  Called by the spirit of vengeance, her past rushes back: the loss of her beloved babies and her death at the hands of her former husband. Writer/composer Celeste Moreno and arranger Bethany Brinton weave  traditional Latin American musical forms, popular music and the legend of La Llorona, the weeping woman, to create a new kind of ghost story.

(NEXT Generation Commission 2021; Developmental Workshop 2022; NEXT Festival 2023)

THE LAST BABUSHKA

Book and Lyrics by Amy Wheeler
Music and Lyrics by Natalie Nowytski
Based on the documentary The Babushkas of Chernobyl by Holly Morris

A young woman at loose ends finds herself drawn deep into the world of the Babushkas, elder women living illegally in villages inside Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, a radioactive territory that is also a thriving green world. Inspired by Holly Morris' award-winning story and documentary film, The Babushkas of Chernobyl.

(NEXT Festival 2022)

SHE’S COME UNDONE

Adapted from Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone
Music and Lyrics by Michael Holland
Book by Darrah Cloud and David Simpatico

Adapted from Wally Lamb’s acclaimed novel She’s Come Undone, this new musical from the creators of Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical uses an American folk score to chronicle the life of Dolores Price, who conceals her pain, and herself, behind an addiction to food, her double-wide wit, and a fictional life of her own devising.

(Artist Commission 2023; Developmental Workshop 2024)

MACBETH AND THE WEIRD SISTERS: A ROCK OPERA

By Andy Wilkowske & Kelley Rourke
Adapted from Verdi & Shakespeare

Musician Andy Wilkowske and librettist Kelley Rourke’s audacious take on the Verdi opera and Shakespeare’s tragic story of ambition reimagines the score for a rock band, replacing classical strings with electric guitars and envisioning Macbeth as the front man/lead singer of Macbeth and the Weird Sisters, a 70’s and 80’s-style heavy metal group.

(Artist Commission 2021; Developmental  Workshop 2022; Next Festival 2023)

MY ÁNTONIA

Adapted from the novel by Willa Cather
Music and Lyrics by The Kilbanes
Book by Noah Brody
Directed by Jessie Austrian

Willa Cather’s classic novel  of immigrant life on the Nebraska prairie chronicles the story of a young man and how his friendship with Antonia profoundly shaped his young life. The musical duo The Kilbanes join forces with theater-makers Noah Brody and Jessie Austrian of Fiasco Theatre to bring this ever-timely story to the stage.

(NEXT Generation Commission 2019; Developmental Workshop 2023, NEXT Festival 2024)

SCOTLAND, PA

Book by Michael Mitnick
Music and lyrics by Adam Gwon
Based on the film by Billy Morrissette
Inspired by The Tragedy of Macbeth by Bill Shakespeare

Originally produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company in October 2019.

In a sleepy Pennsylvania town, a burger joint manager and his wife cook up a plan to super-size their lives. As their ambitions grow and the bodies fall, the couple finds out just how far they'll go for a taste of the tempting American dream. Based on the 1990’s cult film of the same name and that Scottish play by William Shakespeare.

(NEXT Festival 2022; Regional Premeire 2024)

WE SHALL SOMEDAY

Book & Lyrics by Harrison David Rivers
Music & Additional Lyrics by Ted Shen
Directed by Kelli Foster Warder

The roots of resistance and resilience run deep in three generations of a Black family grappling with inequality, violence and oppression. This intimate new musical, performed by three actors in tour de force performances, asks us to contemplate the cycle of racism in America and how we might commit to creating real change.

(Artist Commission 2020; Developmental Workshop 2020; World Premiere 2023)