Performance History

Will Todd, composer, and David Simpatico, librettist, met in 1998 at the Opera Bootcamp in Kent, England, where they began their collaboration on The Screams of Kitty Genovese.

Over the next two years, they alternated four workshop sessions at both the O'Neill Theater Center's National Music Theatre Conference and the English National Opera, developing and refining the full-length musical drama.  In  2000, Simpatico was awarded the Jonathan Larsen Award for his libretto.

The National Alliance of Music Theatre (NAMT) presented The Screams of Kitty Genovese as part of their 2001 festival.  A few weeks later, Kitty received a student workshop production at the Boston Conservatory of Music. The workshop gave six public performances and received a glowing review from Robert Brustein in The New Republic.

During the next few months, David and Will worked with director John Caird, who provided dramaturgical advice, culminating in a concert reading at The Public Theatre in New York City.

In September, 2006, the New York Music Theatre Festival (NYMF) chose The Screams of Kitty Genovese as one of the new featured musicals. Under the guidance of Staci Levine and Michael Nassar, the production ran five sold out performances and was awarded Outstanding New Musical Talkin' Broadway Summer Theatre Festival Citation 2006.