Final November in a smooth bar on a quiet avenue simply off the push and buzz of Midtown Manhattan, Broadway actor-writers Adam Chanler-Berat and Beth Malone hosted an occasion to have a good time the brand new musical theatre work of 9 writing groups. As benefactors and pals listened, Julia Lester, George Abud, Judy Kuhn, and others carried out songs from musicals in growth about all the pieces from the border disaster and the reminiscence care unit of an assisted residing facility to the surprising adventures of the oldest soul within the universe.

For greater than a decade now, the Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat has been holding galas like this to fund the residencies it gives every summer time for musical theatre writing groups. The thought for this system got here to govt director Kathy Evans whereas she labored as govt director for the Nationwide Alliance for Musical Theatre.

“There was such a robust want for writers to have the ability to focus solely on their writing,” Evans mentioned. One weekend whereas mountaineering alongside the Hudson in Rhinebeck, N.Y., the place she lives, she mentioned “the lightbulb went off. It’s so lovely up right here and so near New York Metropolis. This might be an ideal place for writers to get away.”

Over the past 13 years this system that Evans created has quietly grown into an vital useful resource for the event of latest musicals, supporting dozens of inventive groups at key moments of their creative journeys and constructing a broader neighborhood of care and friendship amongst artists and their collaborators. At a second when regional theatres and foundations are reducing funding, notably for new-work growth, Rhinebeck has grow to be a beacon of simply how a lot remains to be doable with restricted assets. (Functions for the summer time 2024 Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat are closed; this 12 months’s cohort of was introduced final month.)

Making a Inventive House

The guts of the Rhinebeck program is a week-long summer time residency for musical theatre writing groups at a home two and half hours north of Penn Station in an exquisite a part of upstate New York. After an utility course of that includes a submission of 25 pages of fabric and 4 songs, plus a one-page utility, 9 groups are chosen. Khiyon Hursey, a 2019 fellow and ongoing submission reader, mentioned he’s been impressed by the vary of tasks that Rhinebeck has allowed for.

“Some are simply concepts, and the concepts and one music or couple songs are so good they deserve the area to discover,” he mentioned. “Then there’ll be a full-fledged musical they usually have very, very clear objectives. The thrilling factor about Kathy is that she permits the area for that.”

From the beginning, Evans mentioned, she noticed this system as being about “empowering writers,” giving them “company and freedom.” Translation: protecting all their prices. “I used to be dedicated to creating certain that we had the funds to pay for his or her complete residency,” she mentioned. This system at present reimburses as much as $1,000 {dollars} in journey bills. When every workforce arrives for his or her week, Evans takes them purchasing for groceries; mentioned 2021 fellow Nygel Robinson, whose work MEXODUS with co-creator Brian Quijada had its world premiere at Baltimore Heart Stage in March and is now operating at Mosaic Theater Firm in Washington, D.C. “She simply swipes her card.” That will sound like a small gesture, however many fellows be aware it. “We’ve performed a bunch of residencies,” famous 2019 fellow EllaRose Chary, “and I don’t assume we’ve had any that pay for groceries.”

Evans additionally insists on giving the writers a stipend; final 12 months it was $550. “Rhinebeck was the primary time I had ever been paid to go away and write,” mentioned Kate Douglas, who has participated as a fellow twice. “It was a revolutionary idea to me.” Brandon James Gwinn, who attended with Chary and director Sherri Eden Barber in 2019, factors out the hidden price of most residencies: “If you depart city, you’ll be able to’t work. So that you’re shedding cash.” Added Barber, “I’m very grateful for my successes, and but it’s nonetheless very arduous to pay payments.” At Rhinebeck, in contrast, “What we had been capable of do, as a result of we by no means needed to fear about meals, about how we had been sleeping, about self-care—it was phenomenal.”

The home itself is outfitted with assets particularly geared toward serving to the groups, from notebooks and a white board to keyboards and an acoustic piano. “So many different residencies, even when they’re only for theatre artists, aren’t particularly for musicals,” defined Adam Gwon, a three-time Rhinebeck fellow. “You’ll be able to say, ‘I want a keyboard,’ then you definately present up and the keyboard doesn’t have a music stand, doesn’t have a pedal.” At Rhinebeck, he says, they appear to think about all the pieces, proper all the way down to Apple’s ever-changing plugs, adapters, and cords. “It sounds foolish, nevertheless it’s so good to not have to fret about these little particulars.”

Generally these particulars have an outsized impression. “I work primarily in hip-hop, R&B, and rap, utilizing digital devices,” Hursey defined. “At Rhinebeck, I began taking part in piano a little bit bit. A few of the songs I wrote on the piano are those which were so instrumental within the present’s life.” That and writing lyrics longhand in notebooks for the primary time not solely helped the present, he mentioned: “It was a deeply transformative expertise for my course of.” And the rewrite that he did at Rhinebeck of his musical Sean’s Story ended up resulting in a fee from Ars Nova.

As Evans hoped, the situation and its isolation have additionally confirmed to be a boon. “Being within the midst of timber and birds and listening to nature come awake within the morning, it’s a really totally different expertise than waking up in the midst of New York Metropolis,” mentioned Gwon. “I really feel like I begin to hearken to the world otherwise. Totally different doorways begin to open.” Stated Kate Douglas of her two residencies, “Having this sort of uninterrupted peace to only make, make, make is so arduous to seek out.” 

David Cumming, who got here to Rhinebeck from the UK in 2019 with Zoe Roberts, Natasha Hodgson, and Felix Hagan, agreed. “We had actually simply completed our first ever run of Operation Mincemeat, and we had no concept what lay forward,” he recalled. “Rhinebeck gave us a much-needed likelihood to close out the world, focus again in as a collective and wrestle our unwieldy new child right into a stronger form.” Their present opened at  the Fortune Theatre on London’s West Finish in March 2023,  lately received the Olivier Award for Greatest New Musical, and remains to be going robust. 

The Triple R

Because the years have gone on, Rhinebeck has continued to innovate. Every workforce is now given a peer advisor with whom they speak earlier than and through their residency. For his most up-to-date challenge, The Bozos, Gwon famous the pivotal interactions he and his associate Michael Mitnick had with Rick Boynton, inventive producer at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

“We had been actually early within the growth of our present, so we had loads of meat-and-potatoes questions” about issues like their characters’ arcs, Gwon recalled. “Rick supplied some actually fantastic perception. All the work we did that week got here out of our preliminary dialog with him.”

As of final 12 months this system additionally started providing a $1,000 “Writers’ Selection” grant, which every workforce can use in any approach they want to assist additional the event of their musical. “You’ll be able to rent actors for a studying; you should purchase software program that may aid you make demos,” mentioned Gwon. “I used to be actually blown away by that.”

Probably the most important addition to this system got here in 2015, when Rhinebeck began providing a second residency for one workforce of fellows, known as the “Triple R.”

“We had a pleasant surplus the 12 months earlier than,” Evans remembered, “and once we requested the writers what else would you wish to see, loads of them talked in regards to the subsequent step.” Within the Triple R program, one workforce which has already performed the residency is given the assets to do a desk studying of their work in New York, adopted by a five-day residency in Rhinebeck to rewrite. Upon returning to New York, they get to do a 29-hour studying of their rewritten work.

“It’s such an enormous confidence booster,” mentioned Douglas, who participated within the Triple R in 2021 together with her writing associate Grace McLean for his or her present Towards Girls and Music!, which might go on to be a 2022 finalist for the Eugene O’Neill residency. She notably praised the “helix construction” of the Triple R, with readings at the beginning and end. In a traditional 29-hour studying, she mentioned, “you’ll be able to barely get the music taught, not to mention adjustments made. That additional little buffer of time permits for an exponentially extra inventive course of.”

Evans additionally identified that the place the standard 29-hour studying is “a really intense course of” targeted on making an attempt to promote your work, “we make it clear to the writers that that is about growth. This isn’t a backers’ audition. That is for you.”

‘What Do You Want?’

Evans mentioned that what she thinks makes Rhinebeck distinctive is that it offers its artists the area to be inventive. “We give them the instruments they want, after which we depart them alone.”

Fellows additionally level to Evans’s tireless curiosity in them—how she by no means presumes to anticipate or perceive fellows’ particular wants with out asking. As a substitute, she’s an “lively listener,” Robinson mentioned, in her conversations with fellows beforehand about how Rhinebeck can help them, in addition to whereas they’re there and after they depart. Lots of the options this system has added over time have come from the suggestions she solicits from fellows.

Evans additionally employs a “Sounding Board” of theatrical professionals to whom she and Rhinebeck’s board of administrators can flip to for recommendation. “There’s by no means a way of ‘However we’ve by no means performed that’ or ‘That’s not how we do issues,’” mentioned Playwrights Horizon affiliate creative director Natasha Sinha, who served on the Sounding Board and is now on Rhinebeck’s board of administrators. Sinha remembers one board assembly final 12 months the place the suggestion was made to supply fundamental recording tools on the home to allow groups to make demos. “It was added inside months,” she mentioned. “That simply turned a precedence.”

“As soon as the choice’s been made to help somebody, Kathy actually goes the gap,” mentioned Rick Farrar, who served on Rhinebeck’s board for 11 years since its founding, the ultimate three as chair.

Few groups have skilled that extra profoundly than Gwinn, Chary, and Barber. Early in 2020, the three discovered that they had been chosen as Rhinebeck’s 2020 Triple R recipients. Quickly after, the pandemic shut the world down. “There would have been so many respectable causes for Kathy to be like, ‘Okay, guys, I feel we’re simply going to need to name it,’” mentioned Chary. “We had been actually nervous that if that did occur, it might be the top of our present.”

As a substitute, Evans pushed the dates again, labored with Barber to determine how they might do all the pieces on Zoom, and requested the workforce, “What’s the factor that you’d nonetheless need?” Chary and Gwinn mentioned they nonetheless wished to go as much as Rhinebeck to work for every week. Evans made it occur.

After the residency, days earlier than they had been to report the present, titled TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix, Gwinn was unexpectedly rushed to the hospital, the place he discovered that he would wish emergency open coronary heart surgical procedure. Whereas the recording went forward, the group determined to place off the precise presentation till Gwinn was capable of be part of them. As he recovered, Evans as soon as once more requested, “What do you want?” At his request, Rhinebeck supplied the assets to pay a guitarist to report these components, and gave Gwinn the months he wanted so as to add the entire different devices beneath the recording. 

TL;DR went on to win the Richard Rodgers Award, and it’s slated to have its world premiere this month at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre. The workforce attributes their success to Evans: “It felt like [it happened] as a result of Kathy had believed in us,” mentioned Chary. “She didn’t surrender on us, and gave us the area to place our greatest work ahead.” 

Much less Is Extra, Group Is Every little thing

Many fellows famous how Evans’s funding in them has continued past the residency. “She’s organizing occasions, writing grants, doing 11 issues directly someway, and nonetheless she has time to come back help you on different tasks,” marveled Douglas. Robinson famous how a lot it has meant to him that she invited him to learn submissions within the years after his fellowship. “She respects your stage of artistry,” he mentioned. “Past you entering into the factor, she respects you as an observer of theatre.” 

“You apply for this stuff, you get the assets and also you go to make use of them, and your present is sort of at all times higher for it,” famous Gwinn. “However then there are extra artists behind you, they’re youthful than you, and the organizations solely have a lot.” At Rhinebeck, in contrast, he mentioned, “you’re form of at all times part of that household.” Gwon concurred: “Even the truth that the retreat is in Kathy’s hometown, it looks like she is each actually and metaphorically welcoming us into her residence. There’s one thing actually heat and beautiful about that.”

Perhaps essentially the most stunning factor about Rhinebeck is that it does all of this on a funds of simply $160,000 a 12 months, all which it raises from donations and grants. “We’ve got a couple of foundations which were loyal from nearly the start,” Evans defined, naming the ASCAP Basis and the Noël Coward Basis. After a couple of years in existence Rhinebeck was capable of begin making use of for grants from the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council of the Arts. This 12 months they acquired a $20,000 grant from the NEA, double what they acquired final 12 months. Private donations make an enormous distinction, too. “Numerous particular person donors are so beneficiant, too,” Evans mentioned. “Quite a lot of them have been with us for years.” 

For all its challenges, the necessity to guarantee enough assets for the writers every year appears to have confirmed unexpectedly helpful to this system. It has actually nourished Rhinebeck’s drive to construct a broad neighborhood of mutual affection and help, what Sinha describes as “a complete ecosystem that’s generative for artists.”

The place different packages may need the temptation to over-extend, Evans and her board have persistently chosen to be cautious. “We’ve grown very judiciously,” Evans defined. Stated Farrar: “Each determination has been made on the premise of what will serve the writers.” Having seen different packages attempt to do an excessive amount of, Sinha praised that intuition. “Larger isn’t at all times higher on the subject of creative help.” 

Because the aftermath of the pandemic lockdown has continued to impression theatre firms and foundations, funding for the event of latest musicals has particularly suffered. Simply final summer time, Gwon’s challenge Alice Bliss, which he developed at Rhinebeck in 2013 with Jenny Giering and Laura Harrington, was set to have its world premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Then the corporate ran out of cash and canceled its whole season. “It’s a humorous stress between the ‘neighborhood’ of musical theatre and the ‘trade,’” Gwon mentioned. “I attempt to deal with the enjoyment and the creativity that comes from the neighborhood. On the finish of the day we don’t have a lot management over the ups and downs of the trade.”

“Musicals want so many extra assets and contain so many extra collaborators,” Sinha famous. “It’s the very first thing that will get dropped.” Rhinebeck reveals how a lot remains to be doable, she mentioned, with a transparent mission and persistence of imaginative and prescient. “There’s no magic factor that’s occurring right here,” Sinha mentioned. “Kathy is aware of what she needs to do, and that leads all the pieces.”

The reward flows from all instructions. In a typical remark, Douglas effused, “I can’t say sufficient superlatives about Kathy. She sees the way forward for musical theatre, and she or he is actively doing all the pieces she will be able to to help writers who’re breaking conference in each sense. She is mighty.”

For her half, Evans is reluctant to take a lot private credit score. “It’s very gratifying,” she mentioned. “I typically take into consideration how fortunate I’m to fulfill these extremely proficient writers and to assist them transfer their reveals ahead.”

She does acknowledge that this sort of help could also be extra essential than ever for this fragile, precarious artwork type. “I feel there may be nonetheless some worry after COVID of making an attempt new issues or issues which are out of the field,” she mentioned. “I’m hoping that over time folks will take extra dangers. There’s no scarcity of musicals and concepts and proficient folks.”

Jim McDermott (he/him) is a contract journal and display author residing in New York.

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