NYMF Now Accepting Submissions For 2019 Next Link Project Plus Celebrity Grand Jury Announced

The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) is now accepting submissions for the 2019 Next Link Project.

The Next Link Project is the cornerstone of NYMF's Programming. Submissions are open to any writer, produced or unproduced, with or without agency representation. Next Link shows receive entrepreneurial training, networking opportunities, and dramaturgical support, culminating in a subsidized production in the Festival. To submit a show, you must have a finished script and at least 75% of the songs recorded, though recordings do not have to be professional. All entries undergo double-blind evaluations by members of NYMF's reading committee, with finalists reviewed by our Grand Jury of industry professionals. Approximately 10 shows are chosen each year.

The 2019 Next Link Project submissions are now open. Submissions will be accepted through Wednesday, November 7th at 11:59 PM EST. Those who submit materials by Wednesday, October 10th will receive an early bird discount of $20 off the standard $75 application fee. The submission fee for students is $25 with a valid Student I.D through November 7th. For more information or to submit a show, visit www.nymf.org/nextlink.

The Grand Jury is responsible for making final selections for the Next Link Project shows with the Producing Artistic Director. The 2019 NYMF Grand Jury will include OBIE and Drama Desk Award winner Donna Lynne Champlin (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Tony Award nominee and Obie Award winner Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812), Jenny Koons (Runaways at Encores! Off-Center), Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre Artistic Director Daniella Topol, Goodspeed Musicals Artistic Associate Anika Chapin, West Hyler (Paramour), Lorin Latarro (Waitress), Public Theater Literary Associate Jack Phillips Moore, and LCT3 Associate Director Natasha Sinha, with more to be announced.

Scott Pyne was recently announced as the new NYMF Executive Director and Rachel Sussman serves as Producing Artistic Director.

2018 NYMF Festival Elite Sponsors included The Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, PRG, Clear Channel Outdoor, TheaterMania, and Tinc Productions. Play-by-Play sponsored the NYMF Best New Musical Award for the fifth year.

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New York Musical Festival (NYMF) nurtures the creation, production, and public presentation of stylistically, thematically, and culturally diverse new musicals to ensure the future vitality of musical theater.

Now in its fifteenth year, the Festival is the premier musical theater event in the world. The preeminent site for launching new musicals and discovering new talent, the Festival provides an affordable platform for artists to mount professional productions that reach their peers, industry leaders, and musical theater fans. More than 90 Festival shows have gone on to productions on and Off-Broadway, in regional theaters in all 50 states, and in more than 20 countries worldwide. Festival alumni have received a wide array of awards including the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2013, NYMF received a special Drama Desk Award in recognition of its work "creating and nurturing new musical theater, ensuring the future of this essential art form."

New York Musical Festival is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.NYMF.ORG