A festival that prides itself on giving a first listen to brand new works is itself turning 20 years old. The 2026 Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, which runs Jan. 16-18, is taking place in and around the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam
As has been the format for most of its existence, three new musicals-in-progress will be given readings performed by students from Connecticut musical theater programs. There are also cabaret concerts, a series of talks and other events.
The 2026 festival will honor its anniversary by adding a special concert event on Saturday night featuring well-known performers who appeared in readings at previous festivals. The 20th Anniversary Festival Concert will be hosted by Marty Lauter, better known as Marcia Marcia Marcia from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
According to Donna Lynn Hilton, artistic director for Goodspeed Musicals, the readings are a big project for college students. All the seniors in the Hartt musical theater program at the University of Hartford must participate in the festival to receive course credit.
Sydney Quildon in a reading of “R&J: Fire On the Bayou” last year at the Goodspeed Festival of New Musical when she was a student at the Hartt School. She is now on Broadway in “Book of Mormon.” (Diane Sobolewski)
Some students, for whom the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals may have been their first professional-level gig, have gone on to solid musical theater careers. One recent example Hilton mentioned is Behr Marshall, who worked behind the scenes as a stage manager in the festival during his junior year as a Hartt student and played a role in one of the readings in his senior year. He earned the key role of Little Brother in last year’s hit Goodspeed Opera House production of “Ragtime.”
Another Hartt grad, Sydney Quildon, who appeared in two readings at the festival, was cast in “All Shook Up” at the opera house last year and is now appearing on Broadway as Nabulungi in “Book of Mormon.”
Drawing from a pool of actors who are basically all in their early 20s might appear to hamper readings where the characters’ ages might span generations, but Hilton sees it as a plus.
““It’s one of the strengths of the program, that this is new work being developed with younger artists,” she said. “The youthfulness of the actors is something we’ve sometimes struggled with. At first we had to convince the writers, but now that the festival has proven itself we don’t need to anymore. I remember when we did a reading of ‘Lincoln in Love,’ and one of the students had to play Abraham Lincoln. They did it, and I said ‘I’m going to stop apologizing for doing it this way.’”
As far as the casting side, Hilton said it’s interesting to watch how quickly people in theater can be pigeonholed. “Students get cast in roles they might not otherwise be considered for, and they do well,” she said. “We don’t have any history with these young people, so we cast them based on what we see. Teachers say to me ‘I never saw them in that way.’ There are students in these readings who have never been given a role at their school.”
Hilton remembers the festival growing into the institution it now is. “When we produced Michael O’Flaherty’s ‘Genesius,’ the reading sold out. That was a big change for us.”
A reading of the musical “Oy Band” at the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals last year. The 2026 festival features readings of the musicals “Miss Hysteria,” “F Word” and “Foolproof,” plus a 20th anniversary celebratory concert and more. (Diane Sobolewski)
Unadorned, barely staged script-in-hand readings, with the cast members standing at microphones, are not for everyone, but Goodspeed has cultivated an audience that understands the form and eagerly awaits the festival every years. “There’s always a pocket of our audience that appreciated what we were doing with the festival,” Hilton said. “People love attending all three readings every year.”
Since one of the Goodspeed’s other new work development programs, the Johnny Mercer Grove, has also become established, the bulk of shows that get readings in the festival come from the Grove, and some of them even go on to be given workshop productions at the Terris Theatre.
“That’s mostly intentional, but it has always evolved into a method that’s critical for the shows that we want to develop,” Hilton said of the integrated development process. To keep this important cog in the development wheel turning, Goodspeed budgets carefully, sells a lot of tickets (including weekend passes and packages with dinner options) and attracts patrons who give donations specifically to the festival. “It’s very much a break-even proposition,” Hilton said, but adds that it does, in fact, break even.
While Hilton has been involved in various ways with the festival, for the past several years the person selecting the musicals being read has been Michael Fling, who began as an artistic associate at Goodspeed in 2019 and became its associate artistic director in 2024.
“I do like to empower the staff here,” Hilton said. “Michael is younger, more attuned to new works.”
Megan Loughran and Sonya Hayden, who wrote and composed the female Three Stooges musical “Foolproof,” are the rare team which did not come to festival from the Johnny Mercer Grove. While that invitational developmental program has become a common route for shows that get readings, Goodspeed also looks at scripts from other sources or hears about promising projects.
“They reached out to us,” Loughran said. “We were not members of the Johnny Mercer Grove. We have always admired Goodspeed.”
“Michael Fling thought it would be a great fit,” Hayden added.
A reading of “Photosynthesis” at the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals in 2024. (Diane Sobolewski)
Hayden calls “Foolproof” “a classic musical theater comedy” that harks back to the slapstick routines associated not just with Moe, Larry and Curly — the stooges in the show are named Mo, Mary and Curly — but with “I Love Lucy.” The show is fittingly given a live theater setting, with the characters working in a Depression-era movie house.
“When we starting writing together, we knew we wanted to experiment,” said Loughran. “We were thinking about the history of comedy and how few women were in the mix.”
Hayden explained that before doing this full-length show, the pair had only written one song together but learned they shared a passion for old movies. Loughran, who grew up in Stamford and used to perform in shows at the community-based Curtain Call Inc., has seen musicals at Goodspeed but Hayden never has.
“We are delighted that this festival exists,” Hayden said. “We get to work on this seriously for two weeks. We are thrilled and grateful and excited.”
The Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals takes place on Jan. 16 from 7:30 to 11 p.m., Jan. 17 from 1 to 11 p.m. and Jan. 18 from 1 to 5 p.m. at (or nearby) the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. Ticket packages include $156 for the full weekend or $81 for all just the three readings. The readings are $30 each ($15 for students), the Friday cabaret is $20, the 20th anniversary concert is $35 and Saturday night dinner at the Gelston House is $36. goodspeed.org.