A DC-BASED COMPANY, and at our core:
DEVELOPING AND PRODUCING ORIGINAL WORKS OF MUSIC-THEATRE,
FOSTERING THE GROWTH OF ARTISTS,
AND ENGAGING WITH THE COMMUNITY IN PARTNERSHIP
Changing the Conversation Through the Arts
Moving forward into 2026
Thanks to all our Friends and Supporters of Alliance for New Music-Theatre:
We are looking ahead to 2026 and are celebrating over 30-Years as a Not-for-Profit 501 (c) (3) designated Public Charity serving the greater DMV.
These are precarious times for the arts, but we are determined to continue our important work in our community to fulfill our mission to:
· Develop new works of music-theatre
· Foster the growth of professional and aspiring artists
· Engage the community into the creative process to promote a deeper understanding and critical appreciation of the
transformative power of music-theatre.
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This January -Coming Soon!
Ukrainian Resilience Resonates in Dupont Underground
11 performances - from January 22 to February 1, 2026.
Tickets available HERE!
Directed by world-celebrated Hungarian director János Szász with Michael Kevin Darnall and Lise Bruneau, this production resonates with haunting music by trumpeter Kevin McKee and refugee-led Ukrainian Men’s Vocal Ensemble led by Ruslan Bondar, a Ukrainian conductor of secular and sacred choral music. Building on two readings offered last spring, this fully-staged experience is the latest event in our ongoing commitment to the writings of Ukrainian playwrights, bringing the far-away suffering of the Ukrainians up close during the fourth year of the Russian invasion.
Descend with us into the bunker-like setting of Dupont Underground to witness the last surviving member of a Ukrainian military band sheltering from Russian bombardment below the steelworks of Mariupol in 2022. Inna Goncharova’s play presents a vivid depiction of the terrible essence of war, while the spooky, echoey space of Dupont Underground provides an eerie parallel for the trumpeter's subterranean bunker.
The Trumpeter promises to be an unforgettable event. After two readings last spring, one audience member wrote “This is a theatrical experience like no other. Alliance for New Music-Theatre has created a production that you will remember every time you hear the news. Run run run to the Dupont Underground and find yourself in Ukraine trying to stay alive.”
Come to express solidarity with Ukrainians and others worldwide thrust undeservedly into war zones, remembering it could be us next. Our common humanity is at stake.
The production of The Trumpeter is in partnership with Dupont Underground as part of their "Drama in Your Face" series.
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Thursday, January 22 - Opening Night hosted by the Embassy of Ukraine with reception to follow
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Friday, January 23 - Embassy of the Czech Republic hosting conversation after the performance - "What does it mean to be an ally to Ukraine?"
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Monday, January 26 - Industry Night for DMV theater staff
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Saturday, January 31 - United Help Ukraine to host conversation after the performance - "How can we help Ukraine?"
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The George Fulginiti Series: Cabaret, Cocktails, & Conversation
We continue our second season
with Javier Arrey
in his curated program"Music without Borders"
on Tuesday, February 3 at the Arts Club of Washington
and an encore performance
Friday, February 6 at the Lyceum in Alexandria, VA
Javier Arrey will curate his own program for the Cabaret series that highlights his extensive performances around the world in many different music genres.
Javier Arrey has been heralded as one of the most sought after and versatile Belcanto baritones of the emerging generation. The Chilean born American baritone has appeared in houses like The Vienna State Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Palau de Les Arts, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Nacional de Chile, Washington National Opera and San Francisco Opera.
In addition to his work on the opera stage, baritone Javier Arrey is a world-class interpreter of Lieder and concert repertoire. Recent performances include Mahler’s Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen at Teatro Municipal in Chile and Dvořák’s Biblical Songs and Gypsy Songs in the Czech Republic.
In 2017, Mr. Arrey received the “Congressional Medal of Honor” at the National Congress of Chile in recognition of his artistic career and his social labor bringing the Opera to populations who have no access to live performances. In 2011 Javier Arrey was the winner of the CulturArte Prize at Operalia Competition in Moscow and in 2009 he was finalist at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition (Song prize). Arrey is a graduate of The Washington National Opera “Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program” and Dolora Zajick’s Program “Institute for Young Dramatic Voices. Javier continues to with local opera and concert companies to help develop and educate young artists.
These are the other artists in our season:
April 7 – Oren Levine & Aaron Myers “A Jazzy Something”
June 2 -- Alan Naylor -- “Songs We Need Now”
Hope you will join us for these special events.
What can you expect coming to our cabaret evenings? Sometimes familiar tunes, to be sure, but we specialize in original cabaret compositions, sometimes crossover genres, and we encourage artists to bend and push boundaries of the cabaret form and always speak to our current times, in the space and the place where we are. We come together for an intimate experience with artists who have something to say and engage in lively conversation with the artists following every performance.
The Arts Club of Washington venue is intimate, perfect for an optimal cabaret experience. Also thrown into the price of a ticket, the Arts Club will provide a small bites buffet and a signature cocktail created for this performance. Following the show you will meet the artist and enjoy other fine company. For each performance, the bar opens at 6:30 pm, the show starts at 7:00 pm.
Hope you will join us for these special events. We are also offering the Cabaret Series at the Arts Club on a subscription basis for the three remaining performances for $165 Tickets for individual performances at the Arts Club are $65. For tickets, go HERE.
For the Encore performance on Friday, February 6 at 7:30 pm at the Lyceum tickets are $40 and available HERE
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2026 Composer-Librettist Studio
We are now planning the fourth annual Washington DC Composer-Librettist Studio for June 2026. The sessions will be conducted from June 13 - 28 and hosted by the Music Department of the University of the District of Columbia.
The full On-line application forms for professional Composers, Librettists, and Singers-Actors is available.
More information and link to the application on our webpage HERE.
Josh Cleveland participated as a composer in the Composer-Librettist Studio in the summer of 2023. About the time spent there he writes;
The CL Studio is still one of the most artistically transformative experiences I've had. The studio is a high-octane but low-pressure chance to learn by doing--you don't have time to find excuses not to write! Perhaps most uniquely, it affords the chance to practice the great art of collaboration: how to initiate creatively productive conversations, how to give and take in ways that serve the story/song, and how to make magic...together. I have so many memories of creating and witnessing such magical moments with my studio cohort mates, some of whom became friends and collaborative partners beyond the few weeks we shared that summer. I also deeply appreciated the feedback mechanism to which the CLS faithfully adhered--it allows for the expression of appreciation, curiosity, and creative deliberation in just the right mixture.
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Featured Artist - János Szász
As we sat down to our first rehearsal at what is traditionally called in theater a ‘table read,’ I felt the special warm attentiveness that actors give this director. It is not so much that János Szász commands attention with the force of his personality or that he comes prepared with a brilliant conceptual statement. On the contrary, he slips into a side chair at the dining room table around which we have gathered, genuinely self-effacing.
He sees his role as “improvisator,” listening closely to what the actors discover in the text then responding. The actors look relaxed even on what can sometimes be a nervous-making Day 1; one can tell they feel that he trusts them and will continue to hold them in a safe place.
This world-class director of stage and screen came to America as a refugee from Hungary with his wife and two sons most urgently just at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But not before he followed his elder son day after day to the train station in Budapest when Peter went there to help the scores of Ukrainian women, children and the elderly fleeing the war with whatever they needed.
He settled in the DMV and almost immediately made his mark directing Angels in America at Arena Stage in a most memorable and moving production. He has been working ever since.
The Trumpeter marks his first production with Alliance for New Music-Theatre. (His wife, Ginger Bognar, a beautiful actress and world-class artist in her own right, and son Jakab were featured in New Music-Theatre’s first Ukrainian Project in 2023 presenting an evening of short plays about the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in partner with the Center for International Theatre Development.) Last April, Szász directed a semi-staged reading of The Trumpeter in Dupont Underground. “It was more than a reading,” he insists. And he is right. The raw, cavernous tunnel created a world truly immersive, more edgy Berlin or Eastern European vibe than most plush-comfy major Washington theater edifices, let alone the gilding of what is now known as the Trump Kennedy Center could ever accomplish.
“I don’t want audiences to be comfortable. If they leave our telling of this story feeling comfortable, we will have failed.”
With two of Washington’s most gifted actors, Michael Kevin Darnall and Lise Bruneau , and four Ukrainian refugee vocal artists who will act as a chorus, in the dark echoey bunker-like labyrinth that is Dupont Underground, Szász will be going for something simple and searingly true. And Alliance for New Music-Theatre will do what it does, where drama tell the story and music breaks open hearts.
Postscript…I am reminded of the kind of theater work still being done in Ukraine under unimaginable conditions. Colleague Blair Ruble has been reporting about the arts being created in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. In his latest missive he writes, “ Director Dmytro Nekrasov has been transforming a provincial stage in Sumy into a noteworthy contemporary theater even as drones and rockets whiz overhead. The northeast Ukrainian city of Sumy, home to a quarter-million people about twenty miles from the border, endured the full force of the Russian invasion this past autumn…Nekrasov is contemptuous of those who argue the company should relocate because of the war. These times recalibrate moral boundaries and demand an authenticity he strives to create.” In the nation’s capital, shouldn’t we try for the same in carrying local and global stories of urgency
To read more about the work of artists like Nekrasov, follow Blair Ruble’s tireless efforts to keep Ukrainian arts and the people in our hearts and minds. Their fight for freedom and autonomy is ours. Go to and sign up at The Arts of War | citdus
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Artists and Partners on View
On Tuesday, January 27 Librettist Mark Campbell will be featured at the Arts Club of Washington as part of their Distinguished Speakers series.
Mark's topic is "New American Opera: Factors that Can Contribute to Its Success"
The Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award winning operas of librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell are among the most successful in the contemporary canon. A prolific writer, Mark has created 41 opera librettos, lyrics for 7 musicals, and the text for 9 song cycles and 5 oratorios. He received the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Opera Association.
Hope you will be able to attend. Tickets available HERE.
