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
The George Fulginiti Series: Cabaret, Cocktails, & Conversation
Our next Cabaret at the Arts Club is Tuesday, June 2 featuring Alan Naylor in his curated program "Songs We Need Now."
Alan Naylor is a multi-award winning actor, singer, and pianist who has traveled the country performing for audiences in musical theater, dramatic plays, opera, concert, and cabaret. Winner of a Helen Hayes Award, he is a master of interpretation in art song, American songbook, golden age musical theater, and contemporary theater.
Alan lends his talents as a leader of the DC cabaret scene to the George Fulginiti Series' Season Finale with Songs We Need Now, saying "We need hope, accountability, catharsis, comfort, nostalgia, and discomfort... and different people and communities need different humanist ministry." The setlist, he says, will depend on the moment, but you can count on Alan to bring to life beloved classics and fresh-off-the-press modern masterpieces with trademark ease and heartrending sincerity.
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Where It All Began:
DC Emancipation Celebration
April 11 at the Mt. Zion - FUBS Cemeteries
This is not just something you attend.
It's something you take part in.
Washington, DC has an Emancipation Day that most people were never taught. And yet, DC Public Schools are closed. DC government offices are shut down.
On Saturday, April 11 at 10:00 AM, we're inviting you to experience what that day actually means. Join us at the Mt. Zion–Female Union Band Society Cemeteries for DC Emancipation Day: A Day of Remembrance & Service. More information and optional RSVP: https://DCEmancipationDAY2026.eventbrite.com
Alliance for New Music-Theatre began its journey and partnership with the Black Georgetown Foundation with our 2022 production of "Voices of Zion" by composer Ronald Walton III. Since then, we have continued to learn alongside our collaborators in the production of two workshop recitals on "DC Emancipation and The Right to Vote."
No story is more important, but still relatively unknown to the greater Washington community and the nation, than the story of DC Emancipation (nine months earlier than Lincoln’s Proclamation of 1863) to make DC the first in the nation to establish city-wide emancipation, including the first votes cast by African American men in Georgetown’s Rose Park, in the then richly populated Black Georgetown neighborhood.
We plan to showcase the full work at Mount Zion Church October 15 and 17, 2026 to coincide with and help celebrate a big anniversary of the founding of the first African American congregation in the area. We also plan to present the full production in April 2027.
We are honored to continue our close partnership through participation in and promotion of the living history of our city.
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What Cuts in Performing Arts Coverage at the Washington Post
Says About our Capital City
How have the recent layoffs at the Washington Post affected local arts coverage?
And where do we go to find out about performing arts events in our city?
There is a recent article on DC Theatre Arts website written by Teniola Ayoola that explores the consequences of these drastic changes in local coverage.
It is a sad reminder that the shift in journalistic priorities goes back even before 2015, the year when WaPo announced that the paper would no longer review theater for young audience productions and shortly after that - no coverage of community theater. Mind you, the period 2002-2012 was when several theaters with healthy subscription bases had wanted to expand and, heedless to early warning signs, began aggregating real estate and placing their priorities in bricks and mortar expansion. Weren’t we the city that boasted the highest number of professional theater companies in the country, second only to NYC?
The reckoning came when there was pressure and not only at WaPost but for theaters to demonstrate they were built on successful business models and backed by tracking metrics. Former lead theater critic at the WaPost Peter Marks described what he described as the “obsessive-compulsive exercise” that took over the newsroom culture in the Post’s new digs on K Street. Arts writers left or were forced out. New owner Jeff Bezos seemingly doesn’t value the arts.
To read the full story, go to the DC Theater Arts page - As sweeping layoffs diminish WaPo theater coverage, critics reckon with what’s being lost - DC Theater Arts
We are not talking just about the state of our arts, but what does it say about the state of our State when it no longer values its artistic creative expression? The place formerly known as The Kennedy Center was built as a shrine to a president who believed that future generations will judge our civilization not by its wars and conquests but by our arts and the commitment to the rich legacy of our culture.
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2026 Composer-Librettist Studio
Alliance for New-Music Theatre’s will offer its fourth annual DC Composer-Librettist Studio this summer starting June 13, and we are excited to greet these invited artists, an exciting and eclectic crop indeed. The University of the District of Columbia’s Music Department is once again hosting the sixteen-day intensive. Sonja Thompson returns as Music Director to co-facilitate the program.
The CL Studio provides a rare opportunity for composers, librettists and singer-actors to deepen their understanding of the principles and practice of the art of collaboration that is music-theater. Artists are encouraged to explore and take chances in a series of assignments without the pressure or expectation of a finished “work.” We are proud that we have been invited to conduct this unique training program in the nation’s capital. It was conceived by Wesley Balk, former Artistic Director on the Minnesota Opera and renowned theorist, innovator, and master-teacher then further developed and formalized into a nationally-recognized program since the mid-eighties by Ben Krywosz.
On June 28 at 3 pm, the work culminates in an informal recital where artists will share everything that has been written in the 16 days – all 25 pieces! Save the date and join us in the little recital hall of the UDC’s Music Department. Many alumni have called the experience “life-transformative.”
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Featured Artists: Colleagues & Mentors
Mark Campbell, Marc Scorca and Francesca Zambello
Artistic Director Susan Galbraith and Board Member Norman Pugh-Newby with Francesca Zambello, Mark Campbell, and Marc Scorca.
On March 20, Board Member Norman Pugh-Newby joined Artistic Director Susan Galbraith and Executive Director Duane Gelderloos in New York City for a special Opera America gala. Held at Manhattan’s famous Plaza Hotel, it was a starry evening indeed. We were there to cheer on three very special leaders in the opera world who were being inducted into OA’s Hall of Fame.
Francesca Zambello, Artistic Director of Washington National Opera received the longest and loudest standing ovation of the evening – well-deserved not only for her prodigious career producing, managing and directing WNO plus freelance stage directing globally, but more recently standing up to the takeover of the former Kennedy Center and successfully negotiating an exit plan for the hundreds of artists and others in her organization and launching the 70th Anniversary of the company. Long live the WNO.
Librettist Mark Campbell, who is an advisor to our New Music-Theatre company, was also inducted. This nationally renowned librettist is celebrated not only for his output and collaborations on over 40 operatic works but for his mentorship to other artists, his organizing professional support for librettists under the Dramatists Guild, and his establishing an award for opera writers in his name.
The most touching moment of the evening came with the bittersweet farewell to former President and CEO of Opera America Marc Scorca, who stepped down after thirty-five years of leading the organization through an era of important transformation. He too was inducted into OA’s Hall of Fame – little enough praise for such a passionate, consummate leader and advocate for opera, who has been a tireless champion of “new and received repertoire.
”We love and celebrate these wonderful colleagues and mentors and count them as special friends.
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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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