Honeck-Moss Productions is proud to present “In The Works.”  This exciting  series was conceived as an opportunity for composers to try out new work in front of an audience and see how it plays in a supportive environment.  It is also an opportunity to create community among the composers and their performers.

In The Works will be presented monthly and feature three composers or composer teams, each presenting about 20 minutes of new material.  This month features the works of composers: Martin Hennessy & Rachel Peters, Teresa Lotz, and Rona Siddiqui..  Hosted by: Thomas Honeck.

Martin Hennessy is an award-winning composer of art song, chamber music and opera. His music has been performed by New York City Opera’s VOX Series, American Opera Projects and the Guggenheim Works and Process Series.  In addition to awards from American Music Center, New Dramatists and San Francisco Song Festival, he has been honored with Copland House and Millay Colony residencies and commissions from the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS and the Five Boroughs Music Festival. His opera A Letter to East 11th Street (libretto: Mark Campbell) won the 2014 Domenic J. Pellicciotti Opera Composition Prize and was premiered by the Crane Opera Ensemble at SUNY Potsdam. As winner of the 2016 University of Maryland Opera Competition he was commissioned to compose an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Young King with librettist Tom Rowan, which was premiered in February of 2017 by Maryland Opera Studio. His new song contribution to the AIDS Quilt Song Book was premiered this December at National Sawdust. Recordings can be found on Newport, Albany, GRP and Affetto.

Teresa Lotz writes music and words. Her work includes Red Emma & the Mad Monk (music, Ars Nova Ant Fest 2017, dir. Katie Lindsay) written by Alexis Roblan, A Surrealist Sort of View (music, Prospect Theater Company’s WORLD VIEWS – 2017 Musical Theater Lab dir. Dev Bondarin) with book-writer/lyricist Sarah Rebell, Mommy’s Little Princess (Reading, New Perspectives Theatre Company's Women's Work May Mini-Festival 2017, NYC, dir. Celia Braxton), ThreeTimesFast (book and music) with bookwriter/lyricist Naomi Matlow (Pallas Theater Table Read Series Winner 2017, (The Script at Stage 74, NYC, dir. Michael Bello 2017, New York Film Academy, Winter New Works Series 2016, NYC, dir. Robert Longbottom, 2016), Vinegar Tom (original music) by Caryl Churchill, The New School, NYC, dir. Daniella Caggiano), The Awakening (music) with bookwriter/lyricist Sarah Rebell (book/lyrics) (Reading, Musical Theatre Factory Developmental Series, Playwright’s Horizons, 2016 dir. Celine Rosenthal), She Calls Me Firefly(Workshop, Parity Productions, NYC, 2017, VHTD Foundation and New Perspectives Theatre Company, NYC, dir. Ludovica Villar-Hauser, 2015 & Cherry Lane Theatre TONGUES reading series, NYC, 2014). She is the former Director of Operations with Parity Productions and is a co-founder of LezCab. Teresa is a member of New Perspectives Theatre Company Women's Work Lab (2012-2017), Dramatist’s Guild, ASCAP, and the League of Professional Theatre Women. Musical Theatre Writing, M.F.A. New York University. TeresaLotz.com 

Rachel Peters writes all manner of works for the stage. Operas include Rootabaga Country (Sarasota Opera), The Wild Beast of the Bungalow (Center for Contemporary Opera),Companionship (Fort Worth Opera, Manhattan School of Music), and Pie, Pith, and Palette (The Atlanta Opera). Concert works include Ethel Smyth Plays Golf in Limbo(Semperoper Dresden) and Fronds: The Wisdom of Fanny Fern (Walt Whitman Project). Musicals include Only Children, Tiny Feats of Cowardice (NYC Fringe), Tomato Red, andOctopus Heart. Scores for plays include the critically acclaimed Stretch (a fantasia) (New Georges) and Tania in the Getaway Van (FleaTheater) by Susan Bernfield, andTransatlantic (Alabama Shakespeare Festival) by John Walch. Songs performed at Lincoln Center, National Opera Center, Symphony Space, and as part of The AIDS Quilt Songbook. Fellowships/residencies: New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, American Opera Projects, John Duffy Institute, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Yaddo, Brush Creek Arts.

Rona Siddiqui is a composer/lyricist based in NYC. She is currently working on her auto-biographical musical comedy Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan. It is slated to be produced by THML Theatre Company in 2019. Her musical One Good Day (book & lyrics by Liz Suggs) was featured in the NAMT Songwriters Showcase this year. It was also selected for the ASCAP/Dreamworks Musical Theatre Workshop with Stephen Schwartz in L.A. and was named one of the Best New Musicals by the Festival of New American Musicals. Rona composed the music for an original 20-minute musical about Afghanistan, The Tin, which was selected to be part of the Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival. She also wrote the music for Treasure in NYC, an immersive, multi-sensory musical for people of all developmental profiles. She has written pieces for 24 Hour Musicals, Prospect Theater Company, The Civilians, the NYC Gay Men's Chorus, and 52nd St Project and has been a featured songwriter in concert venues such as 54 Below, Joe's pub, and New York City Center. Original scores she has written include Middletown, The Vagina Monologues, The Good Person of Szechuan, The Clean House, and Love Song of J Robert Oppenheimer. She is the recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award and the ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship. She received her Masters from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. www.ronasiddiqui.com