Jeanine Tesori and David Loud Enhance Forestburgh’s In the Works Festival

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The lineup will feature The Homefront, Hut, Hut, Hike, The Color of Things, Thawed Out, Wandering Man and more.

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Forestburgh Playhouse has revealed the casts and and creative teams for the 2026 In the Works~In the Woods Festival, taking place September 18–20 at the Forestburgh Playhouse.

The annual festival brings together emerging and established writers, composers, directors, musicians and performers for a weekend celebrating the development of new theatrical work. This year's festival will feature five new works in development, Catskills CabLab presentations and intimate conversations with some of the theatre's most accomplished artists.

This year's festival lineup includes Kenneth Jones ' Hut, Hut, Hike, a coming-of-age drama about a college football star whose future is threatened when an unexpected connection with a theatre major challenges his assumptions about ambition and identity, directed by Jeremy Webb ; The Homefront, a new musical by Jenny Stafford , Malika Oyetimein and Sam Salmond exploring friendship, race and women's rights in the aftermath of World War II, directed by Oyetimein; and The Color of Things, a whimsical family musical about an inventive young girl determined to restore joy and color to her community.

Tony Award winning composer Jeanine Tesori and veteran Broadway Music Director, Conductor, arranger David Loud kick off this year’s Off the Cuff Conversations. The festival will also feature Stacey Scotte 's autobiographical solo play Upstaged, which explores a complex mother-daughter relationship shaped by a shared life in show business and is directed by Sue Hamilton. The annual Catskills CabLab will showcase new cabaret work by Lauren Nicole Chapman in Thawed Out and Ian Coursey in Wandering Man, featuring Coursey's original music.

A New Musical

Book by Jenny Stafford & Malika Oyetimein Music & Lyrics by Sam Salmond

Musical Direction by Jeremy Robin Lyons , Greg Kalafatas Directed by Malika Oyetimein

The cast of The Homefront features an impressive roster of performers with Broadway and national touring credits, including: Stephanie Pope (Chicago, Pippin, Fosse), Margo Seibert (Rocky, In Transit), Mariah Lyttle (The Wiz, Bad Cinderella), Tiffani Barbour (1776), Sean Doherty (Jagged Little Pill National Tour), Jocylon Evans, Kimmi Zimmermann, Maya Jayne, Miranda Luze , Emma Bailey , Kayla Ceaser.

A New Play

Written by Kenneth Jones Directed by Jeremy Webb

The cast includes: Hayward Leach (Elsbeth, Tom Swift), David T. Patterson (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?), Anthony Costello , Tessa Weinland.

Theatre for Young Audiences

Based on the book by Vivienne Shalom Music by Grace Oberhofer Book & Lyrics by Lisa Mongillo Directed by Logan Reed Musical Direction by Joanna Burns

The TYA presentation features:

Amanda D’Archangelis, Matthew Bovee , Jaime Lyn Beatty , Patrick Swailes Caldwell, Syd Cox, James Wong, Lucy D’Addario.

The festival's Catskills CabLab offers audiences an intimate look at original work created and performed by its writers.

Written & Performed by Lauren Nicole Chapman (Frozen, Kinky Boots)

Directed by Greg Kamp , Musical Direction by Robert Frost

Written & Performed by Ian Coursey (The Sound of Music National Tour)

Directed by Kimmarie McCrann, Musical Direction by Henry Crater

Musicians: Jack Thibault, Stephen Blauch, Owen Harrison and Emma Ogea

Written & Performed by Stacey Scotte Directed by Sue Hamilton

Adding to the festival experience will be Off the Cuff Conversations, intimate discussions offering audiences an opportunity to hear directly from some of the theatre's leading artists.

This year's featured guests include Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori and veteran musical director, arranger and conductor David Loud (Ragtime, And The World Goes Round, She Loves Me)

Tesori is the Tony Award-winning composer of Fun Home and Kimberly Akimbo, as well as Caroline, or Change and Violet. Loud's distinguished career as a musical director, arranger and conductor spans decades of Broadway and musical theatre. He is the author of Facing the Music: A Broadway Memoir.

The conversations will offer audiences an insider's perspective on the creative process, the development of new musicals and the ever-changing landscape of American theatre.

The In the Works~In the Woods Festival has a growing record of helping new theatrical works find their way to larger stages.

By Any Other Name, presented at the 2021 festival, is receiving its world premiere at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston. Stage Mother, featured in the 2024 festival, will receive its world premiere at The Phoenix Theatre Company in May 2027.

Other festival works have gone on to significant productions and continued development, including Douglas Lyons ' Don't Touch My Hair, which premiered at IAMA Theatre Company in Los Angeles; El Otro Oz, winner of the Off-Broadway Alliance Award and presented by Center Theatre Group; Bottle Shock, which received a world premiere production at California Center for the Arts, Escondido; and Jessica Hendy 's Walking with Bubbles, which enjoyed an extended Off-Broadway run and received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance.

Gordon Gets Down!, another In the Works~In the Woods selection, was subsequently featured in Forestburgh Playhouse's 2023 Season for Young Audiences.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/central-new-york/article/Jeanine-Tesori-and-David-Loud-to-Join-Forestburghs-IN-THE-WORKSIN-THE-WOODS-Festival-Lineup-20260911)._