A nationally recognized festival at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, USA

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Maggie-Kate Coleman, Polyphone represents an institutional effort by University of the Arts to change how musicals are born and how young theater makers are trained. By putting student performers and creatives in collaboration with cutting-edge artists of new musicals and dedicating university resources to new works as they are being born, Polyphone has made a transformative impact on hundreds of young artists, audiences, and the field of new musicals as a whole. 

We define a musical as a performance in which music is a primary mode of storytelling. This can include ensemble-based, devised, experimental and/or operatic work as well as more traditionally-structured book musicals. We envision a musical theater landscape as complex and expansive as any other art form. We celebrate musicals that, while honoring craft, seek to expand the boundaries of what a musical can be, and we support creators who embrace the full potential of the musical theater form.  We seek out musicals that might be considered too big, too complicated, too weird, too political, too queer, too experimental, too personal, too edgy, too esoteric, too provocative, or too SOMETHING for many traditional musical theater development opportunities. 

We at Polyphone are especially motivated to program voices and stories that are traditionally underrepresented in the musical theater canon. We see this moment as an opportunity to deconstruct and unsettle the ways in which we develop new work.  We acknowledge that we have employed industry-standard structures that uphold the white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, and we seek to actively use this moment to free ourselves from those oppressive standards by reimagining and redefining the process of new musical development. 

Composer and Writer César Alvarez served as Polyphone’s artistic director from its founding in 2015 through 2019. University of the Arts, the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts and Polyphone are grateful for the generosity of donors Peter Haas and Doug Kreitzberg, and the support of President and CEO David Yager. Without them, this festival would not be possible. The Polyphone Festival hopes to honor the memory of Suzanne Kreitzberg through our ongoing work.