Announcing the 2024 Across a Crowded Room Fellows

For eleven years, the Across a Crowded Room incubator program series at the Library for the Performing Arts has created a space for musical theater artists to meet, collaborate, and form connections. Launched by Billy Rose Theatre Division Curator Doug Reside, the program invites lyricists, composers, book writers, and performers to participate in workshops and meetings over the summer, with feedback from industry professionals. The program culminates in the creation of new 20-minute musical theater pieces that are presented in the fall to live audiences at the Library. 

Anyone can sign up to Across a Crowded Room for free, but since 2022, the Library for the Performing Arts has allowed participants to apply for this fellowship, which gives the artists money to develop their works into 90-minute pieces. This year, for the first time, we have chosen three projects as the Across a Crowded Room Fellows. 

Learn about the three teams that have been selected as the recipients of this year’s fellowship below. 

Face to Face is a musical comedy that opens on Quinn, a young professional overwhelmed by the unceasing demands of her office job. Faced with a never-ending onslaught of meeting requests, Quinn decides to reject one quick post-mortem in the hopes she might be able to regain some semblance of her sanity. Little does she know, however, that this insignificant formality will become anything but, as Taylor, Quinn’s workaholic boss and orchestrator of said meeting, vows to have their “face to face,” no matter the cost. As a result of Taylor’s unyielding desire for order, the show embarks on an absurdist exploration of work, life, and human connection. The team hopes to use the fellowship to expand on worldbuilding and further character development, as well as add additional songs and orchestrations.

For Love or Funny is a classic musical comedy which reimagines the Three Stooges’ characters as a trio of sisters: Mo, Mary, and Curly. In a goofy, slapstick version of 1930s Brooklyn, the sisters’ family-owned clothing store is about to close—unless they can somehow get a whopping $500 by tomorrow. When they learn that the cops are offering that exact reward for the capture of a notorious robber, they hatch a harebrained scheme to catch him themselves. Along the way, our trio must rely on their bonds of sisterhood to succeed, while navigating mix-ups, mayhem, mistaken identities, and more! As a female writing duo, Loughran and Hayden are excited to use the fellowship to put a modern twist on old-school comedy and center bold female characters who get to land the punches and the punchlines.

The Crane Wife is based on a Japanese folktale of a crane who falls in love with the woodsman who saved her life, and transforms into a human in order to marry him while keeping her true identity a secret. Unbeknownst to her husband, she plucks out her own feathers and weaves them into silk for him to sell, growing progressively more ill in the process. The musical grapples with themes of love, sacrifice, and betrayal. With this fellowship, the writing team will expand their work into an anthology of folktales and explore creative ways of visually presenting these stories.

Each of these teams will have the chance to develop their work over the course of the summer, and their productions will be presented in the fall at the Library.