The front runner competing for one of three slots is The Wild Party (book and music/lyrics by Andrew Lippa), based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March. Just becoming available to community theaters this year, it would be the area debut in Washington, DC. Adapted from a book-length poem written in and about the Roaring Twenties, The Wild Party tells the story of one wild evening in the Manhattan apartment shared by Queenie and Burrs, a vaudeville dancer and a vaudeville clown. In a relationship marked by vicious behavior and recklessness, they decide to throw a party to end all parties. Capturing the sound of a bygone era with a nod to the present one, Lippa makes us realize that moral decadence is not only limited to our past.

The second consideration is The Last Five Years (book and music/lyrics by Jason Robert Brown), which would also make its debut in the DC area (available for 2004 production). Brown is best known for writing Songs for A New World, which KAT produced this past spring. The Last Five Years is a contemporary song-cycle musical that ingeniously chronicles the five-year life of a marriage, from meeting to break-up...or from break-up to meeting, depending on how you look at it. The show is presented in "forward time" as we follow the story of a couple's relationship, from meeting to wedding to ultimate breakup.

Our third contender is the ever-famous The Rocky Horror Show (book and music/lyrics by Richard O'Brien). To spice things up, the kinky cult musical, with its campy sing-along rituals, is a delightfully lurid celebration of the lost world of 1950's B-movies. The narrator, "sweet" transvestite Dick Cavett, and his motley crew do the time warp again in a twenty-fifth anniversary revival.

Three lesser-known shows also beg production based on their mighty voices. Also written by Andrew Lippa (with the help of Tom Greenwald) is the musical, john and jen. A truly original two-person musical that takes a look at the complexities of relationships between brothers and sisters and parents and children, john and jen is set against the background of a changing America from 1950-1990 and tells the story of Jen's life and her relationship with her two Johns. This is a musical about connections, commitments and the healing of the human heart.

Suggested by Carrie Reynolds, (Maryland MTI representative and college friend) is Jane Eyre (music and lyrics by Paul Gordon). Just becoming available for production this year, Jane Eyre is a haunting retelling of the Charlotte Brontë classic about an orphan girl who grows up to become the governess of Thornfield Hall. An ensemble musical, this 27 person cast surrounds Jane in telling her life's struggles through child abuse, death, love and trust. So enchanting is the romantic lyricism uncommon in the modern Broadway musical.

Lastly is the musical, Little Fish (book and music/lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa). Little Fish is a stylish new musical that translates the sort of neurotic, sidewise narrative associated with The New Yorker's fiction into the terms of a musical comedy. This is a lively musical about what it means to feel lifeless in contemporary Manhattan. We shadow the life of Charlotte, a young writer of short stories who is confronting her past, present and future in post-9/11 Manhattan. Here we embark on a modern-day odyssey as she attempts desperately to fill her nicotine-starved days with swimming at the Y and jogging, but to no avail.

All six shows would bring light and depth to KAT. Please feel free to read these works and give us your input. We want to hear from you.

– Elizabeth French (KAT Artistic Director)

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