ABOUT ME

Brannon Bowers (they/them) is currently the Producing Director of the American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University and during their tenure has developed over 45 musical projects, working with artists such as Lonny Price (Sunset Boulevard, Sweeney Todd, Company), Sam Pinkleton (Oh, Mary!, Natasha…Comet of 1812), Shakina Nayfack (Quantum Leap, Transparent), Dan Gillespie Sells (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie), Kristoffer Diaz (Hell’s Kitchen), as well as 10 Jonathan Larson Award winners through an official partnership with the American Theatre Wing. Brannon produced 6 shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe through a partnership with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, was a co-producer on the Wirtz Center’s mainstage productions of The Battlefields of Clara Barton and Something In The Game, and was the producer of the Johnny Mercer Foundation’s Songwriters Project for seven consecutive years.

Brannon is on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) and is in their fifth & final year on the selection committee for the NAMT Festival of New Musicals, having served as a co-chair for three years. Most recently, Brannon has been engaged as the Lead Consultant on a planning grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation to create a Center for New Work Development in Pittsburgh that would link Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama with local arts institutions to generate new plays & musicals.

Brannon is the creative producer of Get Out Alive, an autobiographical afrogoth musical by artist & activist Nikki Lynette, which they developed into an award-winning independent film in 2021, was featured in the NAMT Festival in 2022, and is currently in development for the stage with Octopus Theatricals. They are also a producer on Lynette’s next documentary musical project, Happy Songs About Unhappy Things which is currently in film festivals around the country.

Brannon was one of the producers and the general manager for We Are Here: Songs from the Holocaust which sold out Carnegie Hall in January 2023 (cast included Chita Rivera, Harvey Fierstein, Shoshana Bean, Andrew Lippa, and more) and was professionally filmed at The Salt Shed in Chicago in November 2023. Brannon returned to Carnegie Hall in October 2023 as a producer and general manager for the first U.S. performance of the Korean War Memorial Concert, executive produced and conducted by the world-renowned Jong Hoon Bae.

Brannon has participated in the selection or nominating processes for the Stiles & Drew Song Prize, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Weston/Ghostlight New Musical Award, the Johnny Mercer Writers Grove, the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival, and the National Playwrights Conference. Brannon has been a guest lecturer at Northwestern, DePaul, and Carnegie Mellon University and has spoken on panels for NAMT, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, New Musicals Inc., Mercury Musical Developments, and the Segal Centre in Montreal, Canada. Prior to their time at AMTP, Brannon worked at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ, under Artistic Director Emily Mann where they produced readings and coordinated casting for new works by Emily Mann, Christopher Durang, Ken Ludwig, Nilo Cruz, Heather Raffo, Dipika Guha, and Sharyn Rothstein. Brannon has also produced work in the Chicago nightlife community and has held internships at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and Redmoon Theater. Brannon is a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in Theatre, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Integrated Marketing Communications.