A collaboration between New York Theatre Barn and the Fire Island Pines Arts Project, Barn On Fire is a summer residency on Fire Island that makes space for musical theatre writing teams and their original culture-shifting musicals in development. Since its inception in 2022, Tony Award-winning director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell and Tony Award-winning director/choreographer Jeff Calhoun have served as mentors to the residency which supports original musicals in the early to middle stages of development.
Barn on Fire
Centering the artist and their work, the week-long intensive retreat in Fire Island Pines is for writers and their creative teams to collaborate and further develop their shows in a supportive, creative, and tranquil atmosphere.
During the retreat, the artists come together in community for meals, merriment, and to share and support each other’s explorations. At the end of the week, the artists have the opportunity to present what they have been working on before a live audience on a remote barrier island off the southern shore of Long Island, New York. Separated from the southern side of Long Island by the Great South Bay, Fire Island Pines has served as a refuge and haven for the LGBTQIA2S+ community since the 1920s. The residency is also an opportunity for the Pines community to get a glimpse inside the blueprint of an original musical being developed in real time.
To date, the Barn on Fire residency has supported 11 original musicals: Ghost in the Machine, Spectrum, Andy, Keith and Jean Michel, King of Pangea, The Bubble, Coming Soon: A New Rock Musical, Skyward: An Ending Elegy, Sueños: Our American Musical, Little Miss Perfect, How to You: A Musical Guide to Black Boyhood, and Buried. The residency is produced in association with the P. Austin Foundation.
Participation in Barn On Fire is by invitation only.
To request more information, please contact Steven Alan Black at president@fipap.org.
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