MAY DAY
Congratulations to Co-Librettists Melissa Li and Kit Yan on winning the 2021 Kleban Prize, given to the most promising librettist in American musical theatre.
ABOUT THE SHOW
NewYorkRep commissioned Melissa Li and Kit Yan to write the 10-minute musical, MAY DAY, based on the mistaken missile emergency alert set off in Hawaii in 2018.
Keeping company with esteemed theaters like The Public in NYC, The Kennedy Center in DC, The Old Globe and Berkeley Rep among others, NewYorkRep was part of a national initiative called “Play at Home,” a push by not-for-profit theater companies from New York to California to keep people connected to live theater and support artists during the pandemic.Theaters commission playwrights to write a new 10-minute play, then offer them free online so people can download them to perform at home or via video chat with relatives and friends. This week, “Play at Home” crossed a milestone with 100 commissions.
Watch the full reading and talk back from August 13th at 6pm EDT below.
CREATIVE
KIT YAN is a New York based artist, born in Enping, China, and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Kit is a 2019 Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Vivace award winner, and has been a fellow at the Dramatists Guild Foundation, MacDowell, Playwright’s Center, Company One/Pao Arts, and the Musical Theater Factory. Their work has been developed/produced/commissioned by 5th Avenue Theater, Keen Company, Playwrights Horizons, American Repertory Theater, Mixed Blood, Diversionary, The Smithsonian, OSF, and the New York Repertory Theater. Yan’s recent works include Interstate (NAMT 2019, 2018 NYMF best lyrics) and MISS STEP two new transgender musicals.
MELISSA LI is a composer, lyricist, performer, and writer based in New York and Baltimore. She is a recipient of the Jonathan Larson Award, a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, a 2019 Lincoln Center Theater Writer-in-Residence, a 2019 Musical Theater Factory Maker, a 2019 Macdowell Colony Fellow, and a former Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellow. Musicals include Interstate (New York Musical Festival, Winner “Outstanding Lyrics”), Surviving the Nian (The Theater Offensive, IRNE Award Winner for “Best New Play” 2007), and 99% Stone (The Theater Offensive). Her works have received support from The 5th Avenue Theatre, The Village Theater, Musical Theater Factory, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, Dixon Place, and others.