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NEW WORKS SERIES
As a company dedicated ot the future of musical theatre, Monumental's New Work Series provides a platform for playwrights, directors, and performers to develop a script by providing rehearsal time, space and resources – all culminating in workshops or readings open to the public. These performances are rare opportunities to witness the theatrical process in its earliest stages of development. All projects in the series take place with little or no scenic, costume or staging elements, and actors may have scripts in hand.
PAST WORKSHOPS
2026
Book + Lyrics by Zachary Leo Harris
Music by Sasha Bartol
A contemporary new musical about the season of becoming: when you are not who you were, but you are not yet who you are meant to be.
2025
Music + Lyrics by Kira Stone
Book by Lauren Gunderson
An athletic, feminist, all-femme new pop musical centering five fierce young gymnasts confronting inner demons required for top tier competition, as well as a real-life demon preying on their youth, ambition and vulnerability. This project was supported, in part, by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly.
2021
BASHFUL, AND THE NOIZE
Written by Alric Davis
A one-act slam poem about our main character Bash, who has taken a vow of silence due to a traumatic event. Bashful was a developmental workshop, presented as part of the Kennedy Center's 2021 Page-to-Stage festival.
2020
DESIDERIUM
Written by Ricky Drummond
Music by The Oh Hellos
Desiderium follows the family and friends of Sam Herald in the wake of his untimely passing. It reflects on the tender moment between loss and moving forward. Relationships that were once easy have now become strained. Mourning is a uniquely personal process, but how do you keep love as the crux when you feel challenged in how you express yourself?
2019
DRESS UP DAY
Book + Lyrics by Jenna Murphy
Music by Roc Lee + Jenna Murphy
Dress Up Day follows a spunky first-grader who discovers that all her friends have the same plans for their school’s “dress up” day. The young protagonist embarks on a quest to find out who she truly is as she and her classmates explore their individuality to find the perfect costume.
2018
MONTGOMERY
By Britt Bonney
On a windy March day in Alabama in 1955, spunky 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her bus seat to accommodate white riders and is arrested. Suddenly, Claudette finds herself at the center of a whirlwind. Is Claudette too young, too poor, and too dark-skinned to unite the community in protest? With its blues- and rock-infused score, Montgomery takes you to the birth of the civil rights movement.
2017
SMARTY PANTS
By Bridget Grace Sheaff + Theodore Bartemes
Amelia Buchanan, a senior at Garfield High School, has a dream of the best Scholar League team in the history of Scholar League. With the help of her friends and one kinda kooky substitute teacher, Amelia auditions and forms an unstoppable team. As the pressure increases, Amelia must decided if her can-do attitude is enough to keep her senior year from completely falling apart. She ends up cheating on her history test, admitting to the deed in the final round of competition. Her friends forgive her, and Amelia learns that perfection is a standard that is probably impossible to live by.
2016
WENDY
Book + Lyrics by Gretchen Midgley
Music by John Henderson
Wendy is an adult and her daughter, Jane, is at the threshold between being a child and growing up. Through re-living her time with Peter, Wendy remembers the wonderful uncertainty of childhood and realizes that she must let Jane experience her own adventures. Not so much a sequel but more than a reimagining, the story is told from Wendy’s perspective.
2016
LIFE: A COMIC OPERA IN THREE SHORT ACTS
By Neal Learner
Life is grand! Not in the sense that it’s always “wonderful,” but rather in that it’s intrinsically dramatic. Life is funny and sad, painful and sensual, anxious and confident, exciting and boring, loud and quiet, hateful and loving, beautiful and ugly, desirous and repulsive and everything else in between. It has three distinct phases: beginning, middle and end. And there’s nothing anyone can do to change that. Life: A Comic Opera in Three Short Acts sets to music this grand topic in the only medium up to the task – opera! The work features a mother and father and their twin children, a boy and a girl, as they experience the flow of life in all of its subtle and not-so-subtle moments.
2015
THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY
Music by Andrew Gordon
Book + Lyrics by Dany Baird Jr.
(in collaboration with Catie Davis)
A new musical based on the movie and novel of the same name, tells the chilling story of Tim Ripley, a young underachiever who, through deceit and affection, becomes what he's always wanted to be.
"It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody."