Hi All,

So I finally figured how to use this, so here's my first blog from about a week ago.  And here we go....

So I'm out in LA this summer as an intern for The Festival of New American Musicals. I'm working for Mr. Robert Klein, who is the nicest man you will ever meet and very well connected out here in Southern California. He's done it all from being a early morning radio in New York to working for NBC to being the main guy behind the marketing of CNN, Nickoloden, MTV, and more.  Now he has moved on and is one of creators and co-executive producers of The Festival of New American Musicals, a musical theatre festival that encourages the creation of new musicals.  The festival works not only with professionals, but college and high school students to help give them the tools necessary to create a new musical. 

The Festival of New American Musicals also works with the Los Angeles commmunity to help cultivate and bring theatre into schools that not typically exposed to in the theatre world.  One of the current projects is called the East Side Iniative.  The goal of this project is to bring young people and their families from the east side of LA to musical theatre throughout the Southland; and to bring outstanding musical theatre events to the theatres and parks in the east side.  I, along with co-executive producer Linda Shusett, have been assigned to the task of coordinating this, and communicating with the different theatres and The Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation.  I'm so excited for this, as it will be a great experience for me, but for the all of the kids involved!

The second project I am working on as part of the festival, is assisting in the coordination of a nation wide musical theatre contest.  This event would have high school students and college students from across the nation compete in contest in which they create and perform an original one act musical, and finalists would get a chance to come to southern California and compete for a prize. This is still just in the early development stages, but my boss is trying to get a sponsorship from Dreamworks and also trying to work with NBC as the tv network is coming out with their own show about creating a new Broadway musical in January. 

One of the big advantages of working with the festival is the opportunity to see new musicals throughout southern California.  I saw my first one on Sunday called Thank You Mr. Falker, and tonight I am seeing a show called Krunk Fu Battle Battle...looks to be interesting.  There will be many many others premiering this summer, one of the most notable (unless you think Jerry Springer the Opera qualifies) is Stephen Schwartz's latest musical entitled: My Fairtale.  Oh another interesting thing, my boss also knows both Stephen Schwartz and Jason Robert Brown fairly well, in fact just today I was sitting in the office and my boss casually mentions he just receieved an email from JRB asking for his advice!  Insane.

So anyway my experince so far has been wonderful!  The apartment I'm staying in is right across from Sony Studios so every day I bike past their huge billboards advertising their upcoming movies and tv shows. The beach is a 30 minute bike ride away, and for that matter basically anything I could possibly want is within biking distance. 

Anyhoo that's it for now!  I hope everyone is enjoying their first few days of summer! =)

Vicky