American Music Theatre Project logo

Our Vision

To be a premier musical theatre development program focused on new works that elevate underrepresented ideas and marginalized voices by providing time, space, and expert theatrical insight to writers innovating form and content through interrogating and celebrating the flaws and beauty of our collective humanity. 

Our Mission

The American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University  supports the development of new musicals. AMTP’s goal is to provide artists and their works with the proper time, space, and resources to realize their intended vision and shepherd them through the next step of their developmental journey. By inviting artists and pieces to our campus, we allow Northwestern students to engage with new work in a rewarding and illuminating way through performance opportunities, assistantships, and observation. AMTP strives toward becoming a fully inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist program through the pieces we select, the artists with whom we choose to work, and how we engage the Northwestern, Evanston, and Chicago communities.

Our History

In 2005, housed in Northwestern University’s highly esteemed School of Communication, the American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) was founded by professor emeritus Dominic Missimi and Broadway producer Stuart Oken to answer the industry-wide need for the development of new musicals. In its first five years, AMTP supported full productions and developed new work by artists such as Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, Tina Landau, Andrew Lippa, Sheldon Harnick, and Michael Friedman (full production history). AMTP also began a partnership with the Johnny Mercer Foundation, supporting burgeoning songwriters through a yearly summer mentorship program.

In the fall of 2010, David H. Bell was named the next Artistic Director of AMTP. With this change in leadership, the goals of AMTP shifted toward works in more nascent stages and less on full-scale productions. Mr. Bell brought well-established writing duos such as Claude-Michel Schönberg & Alain Boublil, Paris & Lamont Dozier, Joshua Salzman & Ryan Cunningham, and Michael Kooman & Christopher Dimond to campus to workshop their newest material. In 2016, Brannon Bowers was named Producing Director and AMTP artist Ryan Cunningham was named Associate Artistic Director. During this period, AMTP began partnerships with the American Theatre Wing’s Jonathan Larson Grant award program, and with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to commission, develop and produce new musicals at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. From 2010 to 2022, AMTP helped develop over 50 new musical projects with many of them going on to world premieres.

In the fall of 2022, Alexander Gemignani assumed the role of Artistic Director to continue shepherding innovative musical theatre writing and create a new vision for the future.