Musical Theatre & Hidden Communities conversation at Dramatists Guild

The Dramatists Guild of America presented Behind the Music-al: Goes Behind Closed Doors livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 11 February at 3 p.m. PST (Los Angeles)/ 5 p.m. CST (Chicago)/ 6 p.m. EST (New York). In Twitter, direct comment @DramatistsGuild and use hashtag #howlround. Follow @HowlRoundTV for updates.

In Behind the Music-al: Goes Behind Closed Doors, Georgia Stitt will moderate a conversation about how emerging musical theatre composers are exploring hidden worlds, and using the genre to give audiences a window into often obscure or closed off communities. What are the challenges a writer faces in researching and bringing a unique culture to life on the stage? What are the rewards of finding such a rare subject? Songwriters Tim Rosser & Charlie Sohne, Stephanie Salzman & Deborah Brevoort, and Kyle Ewalt & Michael Ian Walker look at their latest projects, and how each strives to teach an audience about a world they may not be familiar with and create a compelling musical.

Georgia Stitt (moderator, composer/lyricist) wrote Big Red Sun (NAMT 2010, Arlen Award 2005 with John Jiler); The Water (with Jeff Hylton and Tim Werenko); The Danger Year (with Jamie Pachino); Mosaic (for Inner Voices with Cheri Steinkellner) and Samantha Spade: Ace Detective (for TADA! with Lisa Diana Shapiro). She has released three albums of her music: This Ordinary Thursday: The Songs Of Georgia Stitt, (2007), Alphabet City Cycle (2009) and My Lifelong Love (2011). Her songs and arrangements are represented on the solo albums of Susan Egan, Lauren Kennedy, Kate Baldwin, Robert Creighton, Stuart Matthew Price, Caroline Sheen, Daniel Boys, Kevin Odekirk and composer Sam Davis, as well as several Broadway Cares albums. Her choral piece with hope and virtue (using text from President Obama's 2009 inauguration speech) was featured on NPR as part of Judith Clurman's Dear Mister President cycle, and her orchestral piece, Waiting for Wings, co-written with husband Jason Robert Brown, was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and premiered there in 2013 with conductor John Morris Russell. Georgia has degrees from Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music and NYU's Tisch School for the Arts. She is on the theater faculty at Pace University and is the composer-in-residence at Pasadena Presbyterian Church. www.georgiastitt.com