Still More Theater Saturday - 36th Annual NAMT Festival of New Musicals & World's Fair Plays Revisited

We received complimentary tickets to the 36th Annual NAMT Festival of New Musicals for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own. 

What: 36th Annual NAMT Festival of New Musicals

Where: New World Stages

             340 W. 50th St.

             New York, NY

When: This event occurred from October 25 - October 26, 2024

Recently, the National Alliance for Musical Theater's annual festival took place at New World Stages in New York City. The festival included excerpts from six new musicals in progress plus a song or two from several others. For the first time ever, the shows presented even involved a one-woman show

Genres covered were romance, comedy, drama, history, and more. Most of the shows were a mix of one or more genres   Musical styles were pop-country, folk, acoustic, Latin pop, and more. We hope to see more of these productions in the future, and we can't wait to see what next year's festival brings!

And that's our view. For more about  NAMT's Annual Festival of New Musicals and other events or to learn how to become a member go to https://namt.org. To find out about submitting an entry to next year's festival go to namt.org/events/2025-festival-of-new-musicals-submission-information-session. 

You can also catch a full production of Teeth now playing at New World Stages. An excerpt of the show was a part of the 31st Annual NAMT Festival of New Musicals back in 2019. For more about Teeth, see our previous post, More Theater Monday - Teeth.

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We received complimentary tickets to the World's Fair Plays Revisited for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own.

What: World's Fair Play's Revisited

Where: Queen's Theatre

             14 United Nations Ave. S.

             Corona, NY

When: This event took place on October 26, 2025

This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the 1964 New York World's Fair. In honor of the occasion, the Queens Theatre, a building that actually dates back to the fair, has been holding several special related events . One event was an encore presentation of The World's Fair Plays, a series of short plays originally written and presented in 2014 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the fair.

The evening included a series of 12 short plays entitled:

Carousel of Progress

Myrna and Bill at the World's Fair During the Great Depression!

Waffle Man

Queens.Space

Rendevous Space

Progress

The History of Communication

Drop a Dime

In Hall of Artifacts

Welcome to the Pandemonium

Expositions

and

After the Crowds

They were written by Lauen Yee, Halley Feiffer, Mashyq Mushtaq, Kristoffer Diaz, J. Stephen Brantley, Caridad Svich, Jenny Lyn Bader, Wendy MacLeod, Todd Almond, Harrison David Rivers, Craig Lucas, and Camilo Almonacid. 

The shows encompassed a variety of genres and incorporated a great degree of diversity. Although it is unlikely that every person who attended enjoyed every play, some of them barely seemed to relate to the fair at all, surely there was enough variety that everyone could find at least one or two shows which they really enjoyed. All in all, it was a fun nostalgia trip for some and a look back in history for others. 

And that's our view. For more about upcoming events at the Queen's Theatre go to queenstheatre.org

Tune in tomorrow for this week's Sunday Scoop.

All pictures used in this post are our own. If there is a problem with any image, contact us here and we will look into the matter.