Amy May and David Southerland ’93 and ’96

BSC Alumni

BSC Faculty

Dr. Charles Norman Mason | Patti Manning

Amy May and David Southerland '93 and '96
Passaic Park, New Jersey

New York City musical theatre directors, who promote new works and train young actors

Amy and David Southerland discovered they shared basically the same interests and talents as music-voice majors at Birmingham-Southern. Now the two have been married 10 years and have started two companies together in New York City fostering new works of musical theatre.

AWOL Project Inc. (Artists Without Limits) is a nonprofit theatre company devoted to developing new musical theatre works by emerging and undiscovered writers. Intensive Music Theatre Experience is a private musical theatre training program originally designed for advanced teens in the NYC area that now has expanded to additional programs in New Jersey and Ohio.

In addition, the Southerlands are teaching private and group voice lessons at the Performers' Theatre Workshop in Livingston, N.J., and Amy is teaching choir at a private middle school in Gladstone, N.J. She even performed on keyboards for a recent live CD featuring The Duprees (a doo-wop singing group). And David has received training in musical conducting from the University of Southern California.

The Southerlands always have preferred staying busy, even as students performing in the BSC Concert Choir and as part of the Hilltop Singers. “The music faculty, including the late choral music legend Hugh Thomas, really cared about us and individually helped us develop our talents, and that

continues to influence our teaching skills today,” recalls Amy. She also mentions the influence of BSC Theatre Director Michael Flowers and BSC Music Professor and organist Dr. James Cook. “Dr. Cook was a teacher, mentor, boss, father, and friend to us both.”

David conducted AWOL Projects' first musical, The Mistress Cycle, starring Birmingham native and two-time Tony Award nominee Rebecca Luker. In 2002, they both were invited to music direct the NYC Off-Broadway run of A.R. Gurney's Strictly Academic, and, in 2003, served as musical directors of the musical Slut, a sold-out hit at the NYC Fringe Festival. The Southerlands also were awarded New Jersey's 2003 Perry Award for Outstanding Musical Direction for their work on the theatrical premiere Songs for a New World.

Wondering what their next addition will be to their growing list of accomplishments? “I just learned that AWOL Project will join with national PenneySeal Productions to bring the hit musical The Shaggs—the story of arguably the worst band of all time—to NYC later this fall,” says David.