25-26 Season

The Future, In Development 

By Ellen Morgan Peltz 

 

The future of musical theater is being built at Village Theatre—and has been for decades. Beginning in 1980, when few theatres were investing in new musicals, Village chose not just to produce new work, but to nurture it. The results speak for themselves: musicals developed at Village include Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal, Tony Award-winning Million Dollar Quartet, and Drama Desk Award-nominated It Shoulda Been You.  

The theatre’s new work ecosystem includes not only Mainstage productions of new musicals, but also Village Originals (pre-world-premiere productions, readings, commissions, workshops, and residencies) and the Festival of New Musicals, where many writers hear their shows out loud for the first time. 

“Musical theater has the unique ability to inspire people… to change their mind about things… to make things better in this world.”
—Robb Hunt, Legacy Founder & Executive Producer, 1979-2022

 

Village’s choice to focus on developing new musicals rather than new plays is rooted in the institution’s formative years. “Musical theater has the unique ability to inspire people or even cause them to change their mind about things,” says Robb Hunt, who spent 43 years leading Village. “From very early on, I found real gratification in working alongside musical theater writers with the shared objective of trying to make things better in this world.” 

This partnership-focused approach to development is one of the things that has long differentiated Village from its peers. Musicals require a different kind of development than plays, and not every theatre is equipped to provide artistic teams with the specialized tools and environments they need to succeed. “You can’t just give folks a room and a computer and expect them to write a musical,” says Associate Artistic Director Aislinn Frantz-Nava. “You need musicians, collaborators—sometimes a choreographer, a music director. The process has to be customized.” 

This year’s production of We Ain’t Ever Gonna Break Up: The Hymon & Parfunkel Musical by Gregg Hammer and Louis Pardo is the latest in a long line of new musicals to benefit from Village Theatre’s developmental support—but with a twist.

It’s not a world premiere. 

 “You can’t just give folks a room and a computer and expect them to write a musical. You need musicians, collaborators…The process has to be customized.” 
—Aislinn Frantz-Nava, Associate Artistic Director

 

As is the case for most musicals, the path to production for We Ain’t Ever Gonna Break Up was a winding one. Hammer and Pardo met as college freshmen and later toured together in Jesus Christ Superstar, where they began writing songs from their hotel rooms at tour stops all over the country. The idea of turning their just-for-fun-songwriting into a full-fledged musical came just over four years ago when future director and collaborator Scott Weinstein encouraged the duo to go down the route of a bio-musical satire. “So,” says Pardo, “we threw these two lovable rascals into their own musical and we have been trying to build a better mousetrap ever since.” 

In the fall of 2024, after a developmental workshop at Village’s Festival of New Musicals, We Ain’t Ever Gonna Break Up premiered at Phoenix Theatre in Arizona. “We learned a lot from our first production,” says Pardo. “The problem was, the show froze after opening.”  

“I do not yet know which works we will be developing, but I do know that they will be the future of musical theater in America.”
—Adam Immerwahr, Artistic Director

 

Cue Village Theatre. The show was offered a second production, a rare but invaluable opportunity for further development that few new musicals are allotted, preceded by a writer’s retreat in which the collaborators reworked two major sections of the show. This customized commitment to a project exemplifies one of Village’s core beliefs: that a musical’s value isn’t just in its premiere, but in its potential.  

Looking ahead, Village sees its continued investment in new musical development as a way to expand who gets to tell stories – and who gets to hear them. The Festival is now just $10 per show to attend, dramatically increasing access; and Village’s submission policy invites voices that might otherwise go unheard. “I do not yet know which works we will be developing,” says Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr, “but I do know that they will be the future of musical theater in America.”

Originally published July 13, 2026

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We Ain’t Ever Gonna Break Up: The Hymon & Parfunkel Musical

EVERETT JUN 27–JUL 19, 2026

 

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