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
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2026 Composer-Librettist Studio Recap
Participants on first day - June 13
giving the big
"YES!"
We wrapped up our fourth annual Composer Librettist Studio on June 28 with an informal recital featuring all 25 collaborative pieces that had been worked on in the sixteen-day intensive workshop. This year’s crop of professional artists represented the most diverse in terms of ethnic backgrounds and musical languages we have been privileged to host, including African American, Chinese, French, Korean, Iranian, Lithuanian, Norwegian and Ukrainian artists, and these artists, now living across the United States, accepted the challenge to come to DC and throw themselves headlong into meeting seemingly impossible deadlines and stretching themselves far out of their comfort zones for 5 different assignments.
Even more importantly for the success of the program, these individuals -- 5 composers, 5 writers, and 5 singer-actors --worked together on the principles and practice of collaboration, changing partners with every assignment, with the highest degree of generosity of spirit and mutual support and enthusiasm. What happens in such a short time is something like a miracle, and we could never pull this off without the unique talents of pianist and Music Director with the modest Sonja Thompson.
The final presentation of the 25 works at the recital was titled “Liberty’s Revival” by composer Sophia Pavlenko and writer Matty Griffiths, and sung by Valerie Filloux, Farah Kidwai and Daniel Smith. The theme of the work addresses the perilous state of liberty in this country, where the power should come from the people and our deep diversity broadens that power.
The University of the District of Columbia’s Music Department once again hosted the sixteen-day intensive workshop which 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.”
To represent this year’s CL Studio artists, composer Sophia Pavlenko and writer Matty Griffiths will share their perspectives and serve as our July Featured Artists.
We look forward to hearing about the initiation of collaborative projects coming down the pike from this talented cohort as well as our own Alliance for New Music-Theatre launching reunion gatherings and sharing and even commissioning works. We will keep our audience friends informed in future announcements.
Participants on last day - June 28 after a successful recital.
Still smiling!
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The George Fulginiti Series: Cabaret, Cocktails, & Conversation
We closed out our 2025- 2026 Cabaret Season
with a very successful show at the Arts Club of Washington.
This is our lineup for our 2026-2027 Cabaret Season
October 6, 2026. CARMEN MEETS LOLA
Crossover Artist, Company Member, and Dominican Republic songstress Melisa Bonetti blends different music genres, pairing operatic arias with jazzy standards to express wild and deep emotions.
December 1, 2026. CURTAIN CALLS: HOWARD EDITION
Company Member Daniel ‘Deacon’ Smith takes the lead, helps us embark on a partnership with Howard University, leading award-winning student performers from a cabaret competition.
February 2, 2027. A GATSBY FOR OUR TIME
This cabaret will feature songs from Company Member Josh Cleveland's adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel with original music and lyrics inspired by 20’s jazz.
April 6, 2027. SUZY PLAYS THE SAXOPHONE
Prominent silent film musician Andrew Earle Simpson screens an exuberant 1928 French/German silent film, Saxophone Suzy, accompanied by a new live score plus new arrangements of Weimar-inspired cabaret.
May 4, 2027. SING THE UNSUNG
Company Member Cara Schaefer shares her wit, expressive voice, and enormously generous heart, especially for all creatures great & small whose stories are overlooked in the mainstream narrative.
June 1, 2027. MEPHISTO AS A WEIMAR CABARET
Join us when our whole cabaret ensemble reassembles in a season finale and a preview of a new work based on Klaus Mann’s novel, Mephisto, about making art in a growing Fascist society.
Subscribriptions to our 2026-2027 Cabaret Season coming soon.
Stay tuned
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Featured Artists - Sophia Pavlenko and Matty Griffiths
Our featured composer, Sophia Pavlenko, was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, an “opera brat” in the city’s opera house, where her father was a professional company singer and her mother accompanied and prepared singers to perform operatic roles. There wasn’t a time,she remembers, she didn’t want to be a composer. She also began a career performing as a pianist by the time she was fourteen, including touring with the Kyiv Orchestra, twice to the US in 1996 and 2000. One of her father’s dearest wishes was that she came to make her life in this country. She did indeed come here and eventually settled in Troy, North Carolina with her husband of twenty-five years, who is a multi-talented music producer, conductor and educator and her partner in music partner Iasked her what she expected and found in the CL Studio.
“I didn’t know what to expect but tried to come with an open mind. If I am truthful, I was a little bit apprehensive that it would be heavily leaning into the American Broadway musical tradition. Would my talents and traditions be valued? Almost at once, my fears were put to rest and my hopes exceeded all expectations. I experienced such energizing colleagues, and altogether it was such a tour de force experience. What an idea, bringing people together from every corner of this country, with all these different backgrounds and experiences to this crash course in intense collaboration. And I was blown away by discovering what could be done on such short notice. I am so grateful for all of this what happened. The way you built it, from the ice-breaking exercises, and incorporating daily inspirational reading with meditative journaling, and the different assignments, each one stretching us in so many ways out of our comfort zone, but we found new talents. I never thought comedy was my strength. My first writing partner Victoria , such a talent for comedy, showed me the way with “The Pizza Makers.” Then Joel, brilliant, intuited my unspoken longtime desire to create something for that menacing character from Master and Margerita, and Joel whispered the name, “Pilate,” and wrote a most beautiful poem with such a dramatic turn. And finally, as an immigrant, to have the team we had for the last assignment and how we all wanted to tell the story about what Lady Liberty means today and to try to express my love, regardless of its flaws, of this country.
But I loved everyone, and such a privilege to work with so many talented artists
Matty Griffiths is a well-known figure in the Washington theater scene. Having started out as an actor, he has also directed and produced plays, and has long been valued by many local companies for his technical expertise in a variety of roles. He has worked with Alliance for New Music-Theatre on a number of projects as Technical Director and Co-Designer. But we didn’t know – and neither did he apparently—that our ‘Matty Gee’ held a secret super power as a writer and collaborator in the hybrid form of music-theatre.
He told me, “I came into the CL Studio with some trepidation, not knowing if I was going to belong there, but came in opened-minded and leaned in with my comic and story-telling chops and within a day felt at ease and welcomed by the facilitators and all the participating artists as well. All warm and loving people. And soon I was remembering things I had written and even opera, that I had been “in the room where it happened.” I found that the way the studio was structured, from leading into each day with an inspirational reading and centering journaling exercise, and the pace that the assignments came at us in a way suited at least my neurodivergence.
The assignments built and led us down a path to consider different ways to approach collaborating on a telling a story through music-theater – one concentrated on developing dramatic structure, one was a singer’s specific commission, one was music/composer-led, and I got excited, especially about writing lyrics for the form. Now, I’m excited particularly to expand and polish one or two of them. I would absolutely recommend this program to other writers that I know and indeed already have spoken to a few people and suggested they put in their applications for next year. And music-theater invites people in and has these most powerful tools to tell a story and have people consider things from new perspectives, especially new stories and voices.
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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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