Watchung Teen Playwright Premieres Musical Off Broadway

WATCHUNG, NJ — Watchung teen and playwright Natalie Lifson is hitting the big stage at only 17 years old.

Her latest work, “Furniture: The Musical” will be performed Off-Broadway for three performances this week as part of the prestigious Midtown International Theatre Festival.

The sold-out play will hit the stage tonight, July 27, Friday, July 29 and Sunday, July 31.

“It is really exciting,” Lifson told Patch, who is also a student at Pingry School in Basking Ridge. “This is my first big musical. I hope there are many more in New York City, but I am not going to count my chickens before they hatch.”

Lifson’s road to becoming a playwright wasn’t intentional.

“I used to want to be a novelist,” Lifson said. “I dabbled in acting, but wasn’t much of an actress but thought it was fun.”

At 12-years-old she went to a performing arts summer camp called French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts.

“I didn’t actually end up doing any shows there, which was the whole reason for going but I ended up writing plays and stories,” Lifson said. “There are so many shows you see while there and you are surrounded by theater kids. How can you not write plays?”

She wrote her first play at 12.

“It was really bad but it was a learning experience,” Lifson said. “I learned what worked and what didn’t. Then I wrote another one that was acted in the French Woods Festival and was slightly better. Now I’ve been writing plays every since.”

Her most recent work, “Furniture: The Musical” is a quirky new musical about the lives, loves, and interactions of the sentient pieces of furniture that live within a college freshman’s dorm room.

“I get my best ideas at 4 a.m. when I am too tired to think logically,” Lifson said. “Furniture: The Musical started off as a monologue of chair talking and I wrote it as joke. It was about how the chair wanted people to stop sitting on him.”

The plot has since evolved to center around the chair’s love for his human who doesn’t know he loves her.

Lifson hopes these performances will lead to many more.

“It’s a lifetime dream of mine to have my musical on Broadway,” Lifson said. “But I also want to transition into film.”

For more information on the musical visit https://www.facebook.com/furniturethemusical/.

For more information on Lifson and her work visit https://www.facebook.com/natalie.lifson or http://natalielifson.weebly.co...

(Photo provided: Natalie Lifson, 17, of Watchung)

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