Our Writers' Workshop is 42 years old, and our writers have had more than 400 productions. Join us for our famous two-year curriculum, or ask us for feedback, table readings, concert readings, etc. Be part of our community!
Producers: Do you have a musical that's not yet ready for an expensive New York outing? We have a growing national reputation for feedback, table readings, and concert readings. And ask us about developing a musical for you from scratch...either with your writers or ours.
Workshops, courses, audition techniques, and more for adults and teens. Performers' Workshops for professional actors with revered Broadway actor Joshua Finkel and music director Jake Anthony.
Crash courses in Lyric Writing! Outline a musical in 6 weeks! Masterclasses in audition techniques! You've Written Your Musical, Now Get it Produced! (and a whole lot more courses, classes, workshops and exclamation marks!)
On this page, you’ll find a brief history, descriptions of our process for developing musicals, and some options for you to get involved as a producer, writer, or musical theatre fan.
Don't live in Los Angeles? You can still be part of our Writers' Workshop with our online courses in lyric writing, book writing, outlining and many more. Plus, visit our online musical theatre channel, ANMT.TV, featuring original web musicals, interviews, documentaries, and our own outrageous guerrilla musicals in which musicals burst out in the most unexpected public places. Subscribe today!
We develop musicals. Workshops, feedback sessions, concert readings...and occasionally recommending shows to theatres, directors and producers. But we don't produce shows. If feedback and development what you're after, then click here to see how we might be able to help.
ANMT is committed to offering constructive feedback for promising new musicals. Submit your new musical to the annual Search for New Musicals, and receive feedback, as well as entry into the annual Search for New Musicals. First prize is a workshop with the Academy Repertory Company followed by a public reading in our Concert Readings Series. Submit by the annual December 15 deadline; results announced on March 15.
Broadway writers and producers, Los Angeles artistic directors, independent producers, entertainment attorneys, all gathered together for a jam-packed weekend devoted to musical theatre writers...and how to get their work produced! ANMT hosted the conference in 2006 and 2008, and will be hosting the 2010 conference, currently scheduled for July.
Join Broadway actor Joshua Finkel and Music Director Jake Anthony for this popular intensive training ground for the serious musical theatre performer.
Perpetual Surrey is the new 'theatrichorale' devoted to choral musical theatre pieces. Click here for more information on upcoming concerts and auditions.
The Academy Repertory Company (ARC) is an elite ensemble of sight-singing, cold-reading performers who meet every Monday evening to take part in the deveopment of new musicals. ARC also produces an series of readings of new musicals at the Colony Theatre. Membership in ARC is by invitation only. Click for more information.
The Talent Bank is a resource of performers interested in taking part in the development of new musicals. Many writers use the Talent Bank as a casting tool when putting together readings of new works. Click for more information.
This is the entry point for bookwriters, lyricists, and composers wishing to get involved with ANMT. An intensive 9-month series of collaborations culminates in the annual 15 Minute Musicals. Click for more information.
ANMT's internet channel devoted to musicals written for the web. Home of 'Guerrilla Musicals' and '15 Second Musicals'. Also interviews, documentaries, and links to national and international musical theatre online shorts.
Don't live in Los Angeles, but you still want to plug into the musical theatre writing community? We're driving internet technology to bring our workshops directly to you! Videos, online courses, one-on-one feedback from Academy instructors. WritingMusicalTheatre.com can hook you up with collaborators, and plug you into tomorrow's musical theatre world. Visit us today at WritingMusicalTheatre.com!
ANMT hosts an on-going series of Salons with musical theatre luminaries. Past Salon guests have included Stephen Sondheim, Jeff Marx, Jason Robert Brown, Winnie Holzman, George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, Richard Sherman, Charles Strouse, Marty Panzer, and Arthur Kopit. Click here to find or when's our next Salon, or to join our email list for a reminder.
The second year of our Writers' Workshop focuses on the full-length musical. Bookwriters, composers and lyricists team together on an intense nine-month collaboration, creating a complete full-length musical, culminating in a reading in the spring.
The Outlining Lab is a practical course designed to lead you through six steps toward developing an outline for a new musical. Lab author Elise Dewsberry says 'An outline can be an invaluable writer's tool for clarifying the structure and story arc of a musical idea. It can then serve as a blueprint for the rough draft that the collaborators will use to develop the new musical. Writers who skip this important step in the development process are likely to find themselves bogged down with a partially written new show that is riddled with logical inconsistencies, and does not compellingly deliver the intentions of the creative team.'
In this Lab, you will be lead step-by-step through the process of developing a musical idea from concept through to a working outline, with detailed constructive feedback along the way from your evaluator. By the end of this ten-unit course, you should have a well-developed and detailed outline that will solidly prepare you for the collaborative task of writing your new musical. Don't start writing until your outline is rock solid!
An intensive focus on the craft of the musical theatre bookwriter. How to set up a song. How to keep the story going during a song. How is a musical different from a play? How to handle exposition, character arcs, conflict, ensemble point of view, etc. A fascinating and fun way to study how musicals are structured.
A comprehensive study of the Verse, the Chorus and the Refrain, and how they're used in musical theatre. Trace each structure historically, examine them in contemporary literature, and write your own examples of each. Currently offered as part of the Lyric Lab, this unit is offered as a stand-alone for the very first time. Learn and write at home, or wherever you have a workstation.
A self-contained unit focuses on metaphor and simile in musical theatre lyrics, and continues with advanced metaphorical concepts such as synecdoche, allegory, metonymy, periphrasis, apostrophe, mixed metaphor and parable. Currently offered as part of the Advanced Lyric Lab, this unit is available as a stand-alone.
The Advanced Lyric Lab is offered online only for graduates of the Lyric Lab, and covers additional topics such as Character Through Diction, Linear Prosody, Conversational Prosody, Additional Progressions, Metaphor, Simile, List Songs and Twist Songs.
The foundation of lyric writing: Prosody, or matching the stresses of music with stresses in the lyric. Topics include Bad Prosody, Repairing Prosody, Linear Prosody, Euphony, and Poetic Meter versus Spoken and Musical Meter. Currently offered as part of the Lyric Lab, this unit is offered as a stand-alone for the very first time.
Two dozen digital videos. Interactive Tests. Online exercises, handouts and one-on-one assignments with an expert in the field of musical theatre lyric writing. The online Lyric lab covers powerful tools such as: The Verse, the Chorus, Prosody, Structure, Rhyme, Poetic meter and form, Scansion, Spotting Songs, Progressions, and even a unit on how to decide what structure might be right for your song. Work at your own pace -- take one month or six months; whatever works for your schedule and workload.
An invaluable course of study for the serious musical theatre composer. Learn the details, subtleties and power of a professional piano-vocal score; make your musical stand above the rest of the crowd. How does a musical score differ from standard sheet music, or an opera score, or a lead sheet? How to handle cues? Incidental music? Study swing notation. Vocal ranges. Preparing a score to maximize rehearsal time. A required element for the ANMT Core Curriculum, this course is also available during the summer Boot Camp.
What is the future of musical theatre on the internet? One possibility is the Guerrilla Musical -- short, spontaneous musicals which burst forth in unexpected places like furniture stores, restaurants and zoos. Intrigued? Visit www.anmt.tv to see some original guerrilla musicals which ANMT has written and filmed exclusively for the internet!
The Open Workshop is a monthly informal gathering of ANMT writers and performers. Here's where you're encouraged to break the rules! No staff critique; no one telling you what to do. Actors get to hone their sight-singing and cold-reading; writers get to play!
The ANMT facility in North Hollywood has space available for rental for rehearsals, auditions, film shoots, and informal readings. The Main Hall is 24x39, with a simple platform stage (24x8) at one end, and can seat up to 80 on banquet chairs. The Front Studio is 12x11. Click here for rates, pictures, and rental policy.
