The New York Musical Theatre Festival (or NYMF, affectionately pronounced “nimf”) has, over the past five years, launched over 175 new musicals into the world, in addition to hundreds of readings, workshops, concerts, and other special events. A number of these shows have landed Off-Broadway, so in honor of their 6th season kicking off on September 28th, here’s a look back at a few memorable Off-Broadway transfers. 

ALTAR BOYZ
The grand-daddy of all NYMF success stories, Altar Boyz premiered at the very first festival back in 2004, and has been playing Off-Broadway at New World Stages since March 2005 (and also toured for several years), with no end in sight. The show has received several international and local sit-down productions across the country as well. The high-energy musical with tunes by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker, and a book by Kevin Del Aguila, concerns a Christian boy band (with a token Jew) trying to save the world, one soul at a time.

NEXT TO NORMAL
The next year, in 2005, Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s musical Feeling Electric played at NYMF. Second Stage Theatre took the show under its wing and produced a few workshop productions, and premiered the show, now titled Next to Normal, in early 2008. The show continued to evolve via a regional production at Washington DC’s Arena Stage, and then returned to town to conquer Broadway this past April, winning three Tony Awards for its tale about a mentally unstable woman and her family.

[title of show]
Also on Broadway last season was the quirky meta-musical by Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen. The show about two writers, also named Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen, who are submitting a show for the 2004 Festival, not uncoincidentally bowed at the 2004 Festival. The show’s 2006 run at The Vineyard Theatre expanded the show’s scope to include the writers’ Off-Broadway aspirations, and was further embellished for its 2008 Broadway engagement – the Festival’s first Great White Way transfer.

THE BIG VOICE: GOD OR MERMAN
In another instance of art imitating life and actor-writers playing themselves onstage, Jim Brochu and Steve Schalchlin chronicled their relationship with each other, Catholicism, and Ethel Merman in this 2005 NYMF entry. The show played at The Actors’ Temple from November 2006 through May 2007. Unlike [title of show], other performers succeeded Brochu and Schalchlin in the roles of Brochu and Schalchlin.

GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!
Writers creating shows is a popular theme at NYMF, as further evidenced by Gutenberg!, in which two hapless writers pitch their new musical about the printing press inventor to an audience of potential investors. The show received a developmental production at the 2005 Festival (performed by authors Scott Brown and Anthony King), and a full production at the 2006 Festival (performed by Chris Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos). The show played at 59E59 in late fall 2006 and transferred to The Actors’ Playhouse where it closed in May 2007.

CAPTAIN LOUIE
NYMF counts among their alumni writers up-and-coming talents as well as established folks, like Stephen Schwartz (composer/lyricist of Wicked, Pippin and Godspell), whose Captain Louie played in a concert version at the first Festival in 2004. The musical, based on The Trip, a children’s book by Ezra Jack Keats, went on to a run at The York Theatre in May/June 2005 and transferred to The Little Shubert Theatre on 42nd Street that October.

MY VAUDEVILLE MAN!
In addition to Captain Louie, a number of other NYMF shows have landed at the York Theatre, including Mud Donahue & Son, a 2007 entry that was rechristened My Vaudeville Man! when it played a Lortel-nominated run last winter. Based on the life of eccentric turn of the century tap dancer Jack Donahue, the show concerns a young man who is eager to escape his mother’s admonishments against a life on the stage.

ROOMS: A ROCK ROMANCE
Off-Broadway saw another NYMF transfer last season in Rooms: A Rock Romance by Paul Scott Goodman (New York Theatre Workshop’s Bright Lights, Big City). The musical was showcased in the 2005 Festival and played at New World Stages in spring 2009 in a new production that starred Leslie Kritzer and Doug Kreeger.

THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL
New World Stages might as well be called NYMF Central, as evidenced by another show that played there in fall 2005. Also from the Festival’s inaugural 2004 season, The Great American Trailer Park Musical celebrates the misadventures of a stripper on the run who wreaks havoc at Armadillo Acres, Florida’s most exclusive trailer park. The show went on to a national tour and many regional productions.

SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL The swinging 60’s came roaring back in this jukebox musical, included as a special event in the 2004 Festival, which played Off-Broadway at The Julia Miles Theatre from July through December 2006. Co-created by Phillip George and David Lowenstein, the director-choreographer team behind Howard Crabtree’s Whoop-Dee-Doo! The show featured such golden oldies as "To Sir With Love," "Downtown," "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," "Son of A Preacher Man" and "Goldfinger."

And the New York Musical Theatre Festival’s invasion of Off-Broadway continues with Yank! A New Musical, a show from NYMF’s 2005 season that will bow at The York Theatre in February 2010. But which of the Festival’s 2009 entries will enchant Off-Broadway audiences in seasons to come? It’s hard to say… My Scary Girl is the first selection from the Festival’s partnership with DIMF, its Korean sister organization. Then again, there’s the indie-rock musical Open the Dark Door, the Kenyan show Mo Faya, and many, many more… Check out www.NYMF.org for tickets and more information on these, and many other New York Musical Theatre Festival shows.