The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) was an annual three-week summer festival that operated from 2004 to 2019. It presented more than 30 new musicals a year in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

's midtown theater district. More than half were chosen by leading theater artists and producers through an open-submission, double-blind evaluation process; the remaining shows were invited to participate by the Festival's artist staff. The festival premiered over 447 musicals, which featured the work of over 8,000 artists and were attended by more than 300,000 people. More than 100 NYMF shows went on to further productions. By NYMF's county, alumni productions have been produced in all 50 US states and in 27 countries, and have been seen by roughly four million people. Over 20 NYMF shows have had cast albums recorded.

History

In addition to full productions, NYMF presented a wide range of special events, readings and concerts of new music, educational seminars, explorations of musicals in TV and film, and unusual collaborations with other New York-based arts organizations. In 2011, The Festival introduced NYMF meets NYMIF, partnering with the New York Musical Improv Festival in a weekly series in which NYMF performers were paired with performers from the Magnet Theater to create completely improvised musicals. In 2005, the Festival featured a series of co-productions with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater exploring the nexus of improvisation and musical theater. NYMF has also partnered with The Paley Center each season to present special screenings of Musicals on Television. Additionally, in 2005 the New York Musical Theatre Festival received the 21st Jujamcyn Theaters Award, a $100,000 prize given to a not-for-profit institution that has made an "outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent for the theatre." NYMF also featured a Dance Series, celebrating the fusion of musical theatre and dance. Each series included one new musical commissioned by the Festival: ''Common Grounds'' (2006), ''Platforms'' (2007), ''Wild About Harry'' (2008), and ''Andy Warhol Was Right'' (2009). During the off-season, NYMF produced a number of concerts, from large star-studded evenings like "The Unauthorized Musicology of

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", to intimate events like a salon with composer

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