Paulette Haupt was a co-founder and has served as Artistic Director for the National Music Theater Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center since 1978.  In that capacity, she has selected and guided the development of more than one hundred musicals, including Maury Yeston, Mario Fratti and Arthur Kopit’s Nine, Enid Futterman and Howard Marren’s Portrait of Jennie, Joe Masteroff and Edward Thomas’ Desire Under the Elms, Patrick Cook and Frederick Freyer’s Captains Courageous, John Jiler and Ray Leslee’s Avenue X, Polly Pen’s Christina Alberta’s Father, Brian Crawley and Jeanine Tesori’s Violet, Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party, Stuart Ross and Debra Barsha’s Radiant Baby, Kirsten Child’s The Bubbly Black Girl......, Richard Maltby and David Shire’s Take Flight, Jeff Whitty, Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez’s Avenue Q, Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s The Nightingale, and Quiara Alegria Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights.

She was an associate producer for Polly Pen’s Goblin Market off-Broadway, and has commissioned, developed and produced new works for OPERA America, The National Alliance for Musical Theater and Columbia Artists Management.

Since 2001, Ms. Haupt has commissioned, developed and produced new works with her New York Company PREMIERES, including several works by Richard Rodgers Award recipients.  In 2008, PREMIERES presented three original commissioned works by Ellen Fitzhugh and Michael John LaChiusa (Tres Ninas), Laura Harrington and Jenny Giering (Alice Unwrapped), and Michele Lowe and Scott Davenport Richards (A Thousand Words Come to Mind). Inner Voices: Solo Musicals premiered at the Zipper Theater in May 2008 to critical and audience acclaim.  PREMIERES’ next Inner Voices was presented in association with Primary Stages at 59 East 59th Street Theater in April of 2010, which included Cheri Steinkellner and Georgia Stitt’s Mosaic and David Simpatico and Josh Schmidt’s Whida Peru: Resurrection Tangle.

For more than three decades, Ms. Haupt was a music director and conductor of operas and musicals worldwide, including Man of La Mancha, Sweeney Todd, Kiss Me, Kate, Savage Land at The Kennedy Center, Once Upon a Mattress on an extensive tour of India and Sri Lanka, The Music Man in Beijing, China, Christina Alberta’s Father at The Vineyard Theatre, and Lucy’s Lapses at Playwright’s Horizons.

In 2002, she was the associate conductor for the Grammy nominated recording of Joe Masteroff and Edward Thomas’ Desire Under the Elms, and conducted Irving Berlin’s White Christmas at the Buell Theater with the Denver Center Theater Company in 2007.  As a pianist, she has appeared worldwide in concerts with many opera and musical theater singers, and was the only ‘Plaidette’ ever to perform in Stuart Ross’ Forever Plaid in New York.  Ms. Haupt is currently a Tony nominator.

Artistic Director Message

For me, PREMIERES was the beginning as well as the continuation of a long journey in my career. Although music was a part of my life since childhood, I did not encounter the world of theater until I was in college. Once I did, I knew that the tapestry of words and music would become an integral part of my professional life in the future, but didn’t know just how that would happen.  When I joined the O’Neill Theater Center in 1978 and began to spend time in a room with creative artists working on new music theater projects, I knew that I wanted to do as much of that as possible in the future.  I wanted to find a way to spend much more time discovering new talent and supporting their visions.  In 2001, thanks to Edward Trach, this became a reality.  PREMIERES is young, ambitious, and fully committed to each and every project and artist we take under our wings.

At the core of every musical and dramatic endeavor are the creators - those artists who have a vision and the skills to bring words and music together and to engage an audience in a live experience unlike any other.  Those tireless, obsessed people who cannot give up once their muse has spoken.  PREMIERES seeks them out and finds a way to make sure that their muses are supported, regardless of all of the obstacles in theirs and in our way.  We exist for them alone.

The financial resources we have now and in the future will always go on the stage.  As we continue to grow, we will function administratively as economically as possible to ensure this.  PREMIERES prides itself on being a low-maintenance organization with limited overhead expenses.  As a result, we are able to offer all of our financial resources to the projects and the artists we support.

What we aim to offer our audiences is an alternate experience in live theater that provokes, challenges and inspires us in our daily lives.  We hope that you will join us in our endeavor to explore new forms, and support those whose muses deserve your attention.  We hope that you will join our growing organization with your contributions and your attendance at future presentations.  And we assure you that every dollar you can give will enhance what you will experience at our performances where we ‘bring new music theater to light.’