The 5th Avenue Theatre Programs
The 5th Avenue Theatre fulfills our mission to develop, produce and present live musical theater through our Main Series productions. Each year we entertain audiences with top-notch national tours, pre-Broadway shows, classics from the Golden Era, and premieres of new works. We are the only professional theater organization in the Pacific Northwest that both presents tours and produces our own high-caliber musicals, showcasing local talented artists.
We are recognized nationally as a leader in the development and production of new works. Since 2001, The 5th has developed and produced 14 new musicals; seven of which moved on to Broadway garnering 14 Tony Awards, including “Best Musical” for Hairspray and Memphis. Our two most recent arrivals, Scandalous and A Christmas Story, opened on Broadway in fall 2102 to great acclaim, and recently were nominated for four Tony Awards,including "Best Musical" for A Christmas Story. In the next year, we will be sending two more new musicals to the Great White Way, bringing our total to nine: First Date will open on Broadway in August 2013, and Aladdin, our new musical production with Disney Theatricals, will open in the fall of 2013 or early spring 2014. This is an impressive track record for any theater, and one that we are most proud of!
We are further strengthening our commitment to new works development and production through our New Works Program that nurtures and supports writers in developing new works, and allows The 5th Avenue Theatre to help bring about the continued vitality of the American musical.idea through the first stage production.
Education and Outreach is an important part of our mission to enrich audiences of all ages and enhance their overall musical theater experience. We provide programs that share the magic of theater, teach about our stage productions, and nurture and develop future audiences and performers, including musical theater tours to K-8 schools throughout the state, musical theater workshops and summer school programs for teens, Tony Awards-like ceremony honoring the outstanding work by high school theater programs throughout the state, a special project providing teens professional mentoring and hands-on training to create and produce a full-scale production on our stage; and free public events and lectures to deepen audience understanding and appreciation for musical theater.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
We continued to expand the canon of musical theater with the development and production of new works. The new musical First Date, directed by The 5th's Producing Director Bill Berry for our second collaboration with ACT, met with critical success and is now preparing for its Broadway opening for next year. Our New Works Program provided support to six teams of writers, lyricists and composers to work on new musicals in the early stages of development through retreats and residencies to help hone the work, and readings and workshops to see and hear it performed by professional actors in front of a small audience for the first time. The Creativity Fund provided the artistic venture capital necessary to suppport all aspects of bringing a new musical to the stage.
A current need for our organization is to grow contributed income to provide a more stable revenue source to allow us to continue providing the highest quality musical theater productions. We are implementing new fundraising initiatives to help promote broad funding participation at all levels.