Mission
Premieres is dedicated to developing and promoting new works of musical theater in New York City. We support exceptional playwrights, lyricists, and composers whose visions advance the art form and enrich the American musical theater canon. Through staged readings, commissions, collaborations, and full productions, we provide the platform and partnerships that bring new voices to the stage and ensure their work reaches the audiences it deserves.
Kelly Robinson
Artistic Director
Kelly has a long history in the performing arts as a director, dramaturge and choreographer, spanning theatre, opera, dance, and film. He holds a law degree from Toronto’s York University and was the Director of Creative Development for Toronto’s Mirvish Productions for more than 25 years. He is a past board member of The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and remains active in that organization. He led the Theatre Arts Program at Canada’s prestigious International Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Banff Centre from 2008 to 2013 where he fostered a multidisciplinary approach to creation.
During his tenure, he commissioned, developed, and incubated new works in Musical Theatre, Drama, and Dance from artists such as Hannah Moscovitch, Ricky Ian Gordon, Daniel McIvor, Colman Domingo, Jonathan Dove, Colleen Murphy, Aszure Barton, Kevin O’Day among many others, and hosted Sundance Institutes Theatre Lab in 2011. Seasons at the O’Neill Centre as a dramaturge, development work with Junkyard Dog Productions, Bill Haber, MTC, The Old Vic (London) and others, multiple productions as a director at the Stratford and Shaw Festival, Mirvish Productions, The Shaftesbury Theatre (London), Plymouth Theatre Royal (UK), The Mela Theatre, Havana and Regional Theatres across Canada and the US in theatre and opera. Proud member SDC.
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Paulette Haupt was a co-founder and served as Artistic Director for the National Music Theater Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center from 1978 to 2017. In that capacity, she 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 Rodger Award recipients. In 2008, PREMIERES presented three original commisssioned 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. In 2012, PREMIERES presented its next production of Inner Voices with Borrowed Dust by Martin Moran and Joseph Thalken, Arlington by Victor Lodato and Polly Pen, and Farhad or the Secret of Being by Nilo Cruz and Jim Bauer. Our fourth production of Inner Voices took place at TBG Theatre in New York in the fall of 2014. This production was a double bill of newly commissioned works and included Grace by Charlayne Woodard and Kirsten Childs, and The Other Room by Mark Campbell and Marisa Michelson. The fifth production of Inner Voices took place at the TBG Theatre in October 2016 with a triple bill of commissioned works including Just One Q by Ellen Fitzhugh and Ted Shen, The Pen by Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis, and The Booty Call by Saheem Ali and Michael Thurber. The sixth production of Inner Voices took place in October and November of 2018 and included commissioned works by Deborah Zoe Laufer & Daniel Green, Daniel Zaitchik, and Jeff Blumenkrantz.
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 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. In 2009 Ms. Haupt was the conductor/music director for a Broadway Highlights Concert in T’Bilisi in The Republic of Georgia, featuring a cast of 40 Georgian teenagers and an orchestra of 40 Georgian teenage musicians. 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 served a three-season term as Tony Nominator and Voter from 2009 to 2012.
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Joey is a three time Tony Award winning producer and is a Producer and General Manager with Sing Out Louise Productions. With Sing Out Louise Productions, he is a Producer on the recent Broadway productions of Days of Wine & Roses starring Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, The Notebook, & Juliet (Tony nomination), and Hadestown (Tony Award) as well as previous Broadway productions of A Strange Loop (Tony Award), Mrs. Doubtfire, The Inheritance (Tony Award), Slave Play (Tony nomination), Mike Birbiglia’s The New One and The Cher Show. With fellow Sing Out Louise partners Lorenzo Thione and Jay Kuo, Sing Out Louise Productions shepherded actor and activist George Takei’s true-life experience of WWII Japanese American internment camps into the Broadway musical and subsequent film Allegiance, which starred Takei and Tony Award winner Lea Salonga which enjoyed a successful run in London’s West End in 2023.
Joey and Sing Out Louise are passionate about extending the brand, reach, and impact of Broadway through cinema-quality stage-to-screen films and Joey has served as the Executive Producer on the films of Allegiance and Bandstand and oversaw the full marketing and distribution of the Broadway musical Kinky Boots film.
In addition to his extensive producing work, Joey is a General Manager specializing in new work and self-producing artists. Joey has overseen the Off-Broadway productions of Fern Hill, Smart Blonde, Goldstein, the bi-annual commissioning Inner Voices series, as well as the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival of New Musicals (2012-present), multiple New York Musical Festival (NYMF) productions, the Musical Theatre Factory, and the multi-city charity concert Concert for America, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the National Immigration Law Center, NAACP, Sierra Club, and Planned Parenthood with performances from Barry Manilow, Wayne Brady, Jane Lynch, Melissa Manchester, Alan Cumming, Tina Fey, Andrea Martin, Chita Rivera, and many more.
Prior to joining Sing Out Louise Productions, Joey served as the original Producer & General Manager for Seth Rudetsky’s Off-Broadway hit Disaster which then moved to Broadway and the Off-Broadway production of Unbroken Circle.
In response to the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting, he helped to organize and produce the Broadway recording of What the World Needs Now is Love which gathered Grammy, Oscar, Tony, and Emmy award winning artists including Carole King, Sara Bareillies, Lin Manuel Miranda, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, Joey proudly holds a BFA from Wright State University and was recently named their Graduate of the Last Decade. He is a Board member of the Off-Broadway League, member of the Broadway League, Off-Broadway Alliance, and National Alliance for Musical Theatre.
Board of Directors
Karen Beluso
Robert Bennett
Joyce Castle
Mary J. Davis
Susan Elliott
Kate Hancock
Julie Gilbert Holof
Robert Holof
Francesca James
Bonnie Kramm
Michele Lowe
Mary Beth Peil
Jane Slotin
Sally Speer
Alton Fitzgerald White
Dauna Williams
Patrons
Mary Ann Anderson
Americana Arts Foundation
Axe-Houghton Foundation
Joyce Castle
Mary J. Davis
Dramatists Guild Fund
Susan Elliott
Frederick Loewe Foundation
Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts
Nancy N. Gibbs
A.R. Gurney
Kate Hancock
Ruth & Stephen Hendel Foundation
Robert Holof
Julie Gilbert Holof
Hal Katz
Thomas and Betsy Kearns
The Lake Company, Inc.
Robert and Wendy Macdonald
Brian and Rabiatou Marks
Joe Masteroff
Suzanne Munkelt
Daniel Neiden
Gary and Ellen Patrick
Mary Beth Peil
Dr. Joseph Pianpiano, Jr.
The Ted & Mary Jo Shen Charitable Gift Fund
Somerled Arts/Macdonald Charitable Gift Fund
Shubert Foundation
Silverbetty, Inc.
Sally Speer
Stuart Ross and Kevin Trudgeon
Edward and Liz Thomas
Edward Trach
Betsy White
Fred Zito