ANNOUNCEMENTS > PRESS RELEASES

New work by MIT's Thomas DeFrantz chosen
for New York Musical Theatre Festival

Cambridge, MA...A new musical by Thomas DeFrantz, Associate Professor of Theater Arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been selected for the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), an annual fall event that has led to hit Off-Broadway musicals such as "Altar Boyz," "Captain Louie," and "Shout."

"The Man in My Head," a one-man rhythm-and-blues-laden tour-de-force starring Obie Award-winning actor Darius de Haas, was written by DeFrantz (book) with Berklee College of Music Associate Professor Michael Wartofsky (music and lyrics).

The show was one of 14 musicals invited to receive full stagings at the festival, a celebration that introduces the next generation of modern musical entertainment to producers, artists and young adult audiences. Premiering over 30 musicals, with more than 100 concerts and special events, 300 performances and 1,000 performers, spanning a range of genres from rock, hip-hop, and avant-garde, NYMF bills itself as the biggest musical theater event in the United States. This year’s festival will take place from September 10 through October 1 in sites throughout New York City.

The protagonist of “The Man in My Head,” Drew Durango wants it all: a loving relationship with a rock-steady African-American man, solid friendships with Chelsea party boys and a way to share his world with his Granny in Indianapolis. But after seven years living in New York, he still hasn't quite figured it out, careening in and out of love and entanglements with a handsome but closeted attorney, a Zen-like children's basketball coach, a sister on a mission to find a husband, a hard-partying Harlem Hospital nurse and his nephew from the Midwest.

An earlier version of the show, then called "The Downright Sexy Adventures of Drew Durango," was presented at MIT by de Haas in March 2006 during a brief artist residency. (See http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/arts-dehaas-0315.html)

Performances of "The Man in My Head" will take place Tuesday, September 26 at 8 p.m.; Thursday, September 28 at 8 p.m.; Friday, September 29 at 4:30 p.m.; and Saturday, September 30 at 8 p.m., all in the 45th Street Theater (354 W. 45th Street, New York). Tickets cost $20, but can be obtained for free as part of a package which includes tickets for NYMF members (memberships range from $60-$250).

DeFrantz is a librettist, choreographer, director, and award-winning author whose research centers on African American performance. His books include "Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance," and "Revelations: Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture." His play "Queer Theory: An Academic Travesty," which received a prestigious National Performance Network Creation Grant, will be produced by the Theater Offensive of Boston in 2006 and will then tour New Hampshire. In 2006, he premiered "Can You Feel It? The House Music Project" as a commissioned dance theater work for the University of Texas at Dallas. DeFrantz holds degrees from Yale, the City University of New York, and earned his PhD from the Department of Performance Studies at NYU.

To see the complete list of "Invited" shows for this year's NYMF, see http://www.playbill.com/news/article/100819.html. For more information on 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival, see http://www.nymf.org/index.php.

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