In this interview, the speaker outlines the origins and evolution of the Academy for New Musical Theatre, tracing its lineage back to the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop founded by Broadway conductor Lehman Engel. After Engel’s illness and death, the Los Angeles branch continued under artistic director John Sparks and eventually rebranded as the Academy. The Academy’s core offering mirrors the Lehman Engel curriculum: monthly collaborative assignments that pair composers, lyricists, and book writers in rotating teams. These assignments are designed to let participants focus on the craft of collaboration, learning both how to find a lifelong creative partner and how to identify the traits they need in a collaborator. The program is intensive, requiring participants to complete two to three assignments per month and attend four‑hour weekend sessions each month. Prospective members are invited to a free, non‑audit trial workshop in September; after the first month, both the writers and the Academy assess fit, readiness, and commitment. The speaker positions themselves as a “marriage counselor,” guiding participants through the collaborative process.
Chapters
The Academy for New Musical Theatre, we started out— some people have heard of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, which is still going strong, that was originated by Lehman Engel, the famous Broadway conductor who became an icon for people to come. They would worship at his feet and ask for his insight about their work, and he developed this workshop that was funded by BMI and is still going today, even though Lehman died about 30 years ago, I think. He also started organizations in Toronto and Nashville and Los Angeles, and at a certain point when he got ill, he stopped traveling, but some of those cities continued to try and find other ways to keep going. Los Angeles continued and started its own workshop under our founding artistic director, John Sparks, who had studied under Lehman, and he kept it going, and it gradually morphed. About 11 or 12 years ago, it changed its name to the Academy for New Musical Theatre, But at the heart of it, we still do the same program that they do at the BMI Lehman Engel, which is a curriculum of assignments where it's a collaborative opportunity because musical theater is such a highly collaborative art form. So we get composers and lyricists and book writers together to write with a different team every month on an assignment. And making it an assignment allows the writers to remove themselves emotionally from the material and concentrate just on the actual collaborative effort of honing their craft and honing their ability to work with other people, because it's like a marriage and it takes work. And so you then are the marriage counselor? In essence, yes, I am the marriage counselor, and there's a lot of that that goes on, needless to say. And sometimes the best thing that you can learn— there's two basic things that a person can get when they come through the program. Sometimes you can actually find a collaborator that will be a lifelong partner, and I love it when that happens. I love it when a marriage happens. That really works, and I get to see that go on and flourish and be a really good partnership. And the other possibility, and these could both happen, is that you just learn what you need in a collaborator. So you learn what worked and what didn't work, so in the future when you're looking for collaborative partners, you can cut to the chase a little more quickly, and you can be more clear about this is what I need. I need to work in the room with someone, or I'm okay with working by email or Skype or whatever. I need to always be right, or I need someone I really need someone to fight with me, or I really need, you know, someone to leave me alone. And how do they apply to get into your program? Well, we have a fairly loose application process initially because it's, it's a big time commitment, and we are very demanding. We give, you know, 2 or 3 assignments every month, and it's up to the teams to figure out how to get that work done in that month. And since they all have other lives, that's a big time commitment. And then they come to us one weekend a month. For 4 hours on a Saturday and 4 hours on a Sunday, so that's a big time commitment. So what we do is we encourage people that are interested to come to our— we always start in September, and we encourage people to come to our September sessions. And it's like a free— well, it's not even an audit. It's a free first workshop. So you come to the workshop, I'll put you on a team, and you can do the first month assignment and come back in October. And then there's a mutual assessment. The writer can decide whether— might say say, "I can't handle this level of commitment," or, "This program just isn't for me," or, "This is awesome, but I can't afford it," or whatever is going on. And we also will come to them and say, "We think you're ready. We'd love to have you," or, "We think you're not ready for the program, and here's what we think you probably should do before you come back to us again."
