When people hear that before I started “Un-Block The Music” I had a writing career spanning 25+ years, they are impressed…so glamorous! Not so! Very solitary. You can bet, anytime I can go to an event or meet up with other writers, I do it! That’s one reason why I knew I had to write a story about Kara Unterberg’s The New York SongSpace. Kara’s idea was a basic one; to offer a space where writers could come and collaborate. “When creative people are around other creative people, ideas are generated,” she said.
The idea for The New York SongSpace came to Kara in 2014. She sat on the Board at New York City Opera which closed in 2013. She found the bad choices and ultimate destruction of City Opera disheartening. She wanted to be involved in music somehow. Couple her love of music with the dissolution of her marriage to her hedge fund partner, Kara knew it was time to leave finance and find a way to make a living using her passion for music. In addition to opera, Kara was always influenced by musical theater. She is a singer and often performs cabarets of her own. Kara knew it was time to “support artists and encourage them to continue on their artistic path” so they don’t become a lawyer just to make money! While she said it jokingly, Kara put her head to the grindstone to figure out how to combine her hedge fund knowledge with her musical fervor.
What Kara did love about her former life was building a company, so she decided to focus on the unsung heroes of musical theater; the writers who build musicals. “If they don’t write, there is nothing to perform. I asked some writer friends what I could do to help them. A friend of mine, Zina Goldrich, said ‘a bunch of us were talking with the American Theater Wing about a wish list.’ One of the things that people talked about was the need for collaborative workspace. Zina said, there is a lot of support for writers just starting their career, but not so much for the mid-level writers before they have a Broadway show. She thought it would be good to focus on people who have awards and commissions, who have a life as a writer, but do not have a recognizable name necessarily,” Kara explained. “I said, ‘that sounds great, but who would it be?’”
Zina and her often times writing partner, Marcy Heisler, (they wrote Dear Edwina) came up with a list of writers who all said “yes” to Kara’s idea of creating a meeting space. Those writers include the likes of Justin Paul and Benj Pasek (before Dear Evan Hansen), Adam Gwon (Ordinary Days), Hunter Bell (Rogers: The Musical). “I saw Benj Pasek and Justin Paul blossom. It was exciting to see it all happening,” said Kara.
SongSpace started with 14 resident writers. There were different rooms and with key codes it was easy to sign up for space on a Google calendar. As for Kara’s vision….“I am always looking for people who are in different stages of their career,” so in exchange for having this place to gather and work, writers agreed to mentoring younger writers. She also encourages educational workshops at the space.
One of the notable outreach projects that came about at the New York SongSpace was the beginning and growth of MAESTRA, the brainchild of Composer/Writer Georgia Stitt. It is the organization that provides support, visibility and community to women and nonbinary people who make the music in the musical theater industry. MAESTRA met at The New York SongSpace once a month for about a year and a half. “It was quite lovely to see it spark at grow!,” Kara said. (https://unblockthemusic.blog/2020/04/09/maestra-music-a-free-source-to-find-creative-women-collaborators-in-theater/#more-1091)
Working at The New York SoundSpace does not require membership. Invitations are from word of mouth. The most important requirement is that someone has a solid interest in theater not a flighty one, Kara said. She often hosts “Hullabaloos” for which she invites musical theater people at all different stages in their career. “I love bringing people together, and I also love to feed them!,” she said.
Improving her business is always a goal for Kara. “I wanted to expand, but it is difficult logistically to have soooo many resident writers. I decided to offer project based three-month space grants to musical theater composers, lyricists and librettists,” she said. Many artists to be featured in “Un-Block The Music’s” upcoming book about women in theater have worked here. Amazing artists like Carmel Dean (Well Behaved Women) and Stacey Luftig (Saving Amelia). Table readings have been worked through here by Shaina Taub (before Suffs was actually a named project), Mark Sonnenblick (who in addition to writing Spirited and Lyle Lyle Crocodile, is working with Sally Rosenberg on Invincible). Then there is The Great American Mousical with music by Zina Goldrich, Marcy Heisler and Hunter Bell based on the book by Julie Andrews Edwards (yes…that Julie Andrews) and Emma Walton Hamilton.
Kara admits that it is taking some time to adapt to the “new” theater world. “The building was hard to get access to during the pandemic and everyone turned to ZOOM. A lot of people moved out of New York as well, she said. At the writing of this article, Kara was hoping to arrange a Hullabaloo for this summer. If you are excited about sharing your music and learning from others as well….check out New York SongSpace at https://www.newyorksongspace.com/. You will recognize a lot of those names!
Also, for background on some of the artists mentioned, you can check out some of “Un-Block The Music’s” articles here:
Un-Block The Music 
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