Larson Legacy Concert: Christie Baugher (+ Livestream)
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Adelphi PAC welcomes most recent Jonathan Larson grant recipient Christie Baugher, Los Angeles-based musical storyteller for stage and screen.
This performance will also be livestreamed for those unable to attend in person.
For this event, Christie Baugher will be presenting a concert reading of her new musical The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul. The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul is a two-person, one act chamber musical about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, celebrated literary figures of the Jazz Age. Part memory play, part gin-soaked vaudeville, The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul is a bold, hyper-theatrical imagining of an infamous marriage—a chance for two tragic, larger-than-life icons of a bygone era to finally tell their story. Jewell Wilson Bridges plays F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tiffany Topol plays Zelda Fitzgerald. The performance is directed by Danny Mefford (choreographer of 2023 Best Musical Tony winner Kimberly Akimbo).
Christie Baugher received the 2022 Jonathan Larson Grant for Music, Lyrics and Book. She wrote the book, music and lyrics for The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul, which was recently presented at the 2023 ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles and was a selection of the 2020 Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory. Her other musicals in development include Leni Riefenstahl Is Going To Tell You The Truth, The Near Tomorrow, and Bobby (book/music/lyrics) and Blue Skies (music and lyrics, book by Maria Alexandria Beech). Christie’s work as a playwright and songwriter has been featured on five continents, at venues ranging from Joe’s Pub to the Seoul Institute of the Arts to her grandparents’ basement. Christie is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, ASCAP and Maestra. She came in third on Jeopardy!, but she had fun anyway. MFA: NYU/Tisch.
The American Theatre Wing and the Jonathan Larson Grants
For more than 100 years, the American Theatre Wing has been committed to championing and honoring American Theater. By creating the Tony Awards, developing educational programs and distributing thousands of dollars of grants and awards each year, the American Theatre Wing is dedicated to preserving the past, celebrating the present and fostering the future of American theater nationwide. The Jonathan Larson Grants are a major part of that work, celebrating the standards of tomorrow by supporting the songwriters of today. New musical writers are pushing the envelope of convention and infusing musical theater with contemporary, joyful urban vitality. Endowed with leadership support by Jonathan Larson’s family, this program provides financial support, recognition and residency opportunities that invest in the changing landscape of the American musical, one writer at a time.
Since 2015, the Larson Legacy Concert Series at the Adelphi PAC has celebrated the next generation of artists at the college home of the creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical RENT , Jonathan Larson ’82. Each year, the American Theatre Wing presents emerging creators of musical theater with the Jonathan Larson Grants. Select recipients of these grants are showcased at the Adelphi PAC in this series to help nurture and support the next generation of creative artists to carry on Jonathan Larson’s legacy. Past recipients of these grants have gone on to create the Broadway musicals Dear Evan Hansen, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Grey Gardens, Next To Normal, Elf, Hands on a Hardbody, Be More Chill , A Strange Loop and many more.