NEA Grant to Support New Musical Little Miss Perfect

EAST HADDAM, CT – Goodspeed Musicals is pleased to announce it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $60,000. This grant is in support of developing a brand new musical, Little Miss Perfect, with the goal of a developmental production at Goodspeed. In total, the NEA will award 1,135 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling more than $37 million as part of its second round of fiscal year 2024 grants.
 
“Projects like Little Miss Perfect exemplify the creativity and care with which communities are telling their stories, creating connection, and responding to challenges and opportunities in their communities — all through the arts,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “So many aspects of our communities such as cultural vitality, health and wellbeing, infrastructure, and the economy are advanced and improved through investments in art and design, and the National Endowment for the Arts is committed to ensuring people across the country benefit.”
 
“We are grateful to the NEA for recognizing Goodspeed Musicals’ efforts to grow and evolve our creative community and our audience with this transformative, fully original new musical by Joriah Kwamé, which is also part of our first class of Goodspeed’s GoodWorks commissioning program,” said Goodspeed Artistic Director Donna Lynn Hilton. “With works like Little Miss Perfect Goodspeed remains committed to growing the next generation of important new voices.”

Little Miss Perfect features book, music and lyrics by Joriah Kwamé. In April a workshop took place in New York City, which followed a successful staged reading at Goodspeed’s 2023 Festival of New Musicals. Little Miss Perfect is a commission of Goodspeed Musicals’ GoodWorks, its first formal commissioning program to support the creation and development of musicals that celebrate inspiring and transformational stories.
 
For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.