MINNEAPOLIS: Theatre Latté Da has announced the Next 25X25, a new initiative to introduce 25 new musicals by the year 2025. Under the leadership of associate artistic director and director of new work, Elissa Adams, the initiative is being introduced during the theatre’s 25th anniversary season, and comes after the success of the Next 20/20 campaign, which delivered over 20 new musicals between 2015 and 2020, including Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical and All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914.

Since its founding in 1998, Theatre Latté Da has introduced world premieres of productions such as A Christmas Carole Petersen, Five Points, C., To Let Go and Fall, Knock!, Bankrupt City Ballad, Underneath the Lintel, Lullaby, Steerage Song, New York Musical Shorts, Passage of Dreams, Steerage Song, and Oh $#!% I’m Turning Into My Mother. 

“Supporting 25 new musicals by 2025 is a wonderfully ambitious goal, but one we’re well on our way to achieving,” said Elissa Adams in a statement. “Thanks to the many artists, based here in the Twin Cities as well as around the country, who have chosen to make Theater Latté Da an artistic home, we are commissioning artists and workshopping new musicals on a year-round basis, and currently have more than 10 projects in our pipeline, including two new opera adaptations, a new holiday show, and several musical projects led by BIPOC artists and women artists. There are so many new stories to tell and such an abundance of talent in this field. Next 25×25 allows Theater Latté Da to continue to play a crucial role in amplifying those voices and crafting those stories.” 

Added Theater Latté Da founding artistic director, Peter Rothstein, in a statement: “Developing new musical theatre is an expensive endeavor. We are grateful to the NEA, the Ruth Easton Fund of the Edelstein Family Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Nara Fund, as well as the individual Latté Da donors who have given generously to our new works initiatives. We are proud to support living playwrights, composers and lyricists,” .  

In order to meet the goal, the Theatre Latté Da plans to include commissions, workshops, residencies, through the annual Next Festival, Next Generation Commission, and Next Up development program.