Founded in 2002 as Church Musicals, Inc., the company began as the vision of founder, Ed Kee, a 30+-year veteran of the Christian music recording and publishing industry in Nashville. As Creative Director for Brentwood Music (Universal Music Group), Ed’s skills put him on both sides of the corporate desk – as both a music executive and a music creator. As a songwriter, arranger, orchestrator and producer, Ed oversaw the production of multi-million selling recording projects by day and wrote anthems and musicals at night and on weekends. After writing his first Broadway-style Christmas musical in 2002, he licensed thirty-three different productions of it throughout the US and Canada, which set in motion a plan to find and acquire the rights to other original Christmas musicals and re-license them to this niche market. Using his network of arrangers, songwriters and other musical entrepreneurs, he was able to locate and license quality original shows from known as well as a few unknown writers and build a catalog of seasonal musicals.
When the opportunity came along to license some new, unique musicals to the mainstream theater market, it took a little refocusing of priorities and resources and CMI Shows was off and running. We’re new to this market, but we come with a long history of licensing great shows to happy customers.
New musicals are already being finalized and recorded for licensing later in the year. Check out our “Behind-The-Curtain” tab to get a sneak peek and the new musicals we’re working on. We’re excited to be creating new works that we’re confident will find their way to your stage!