It’s truth in advertising: Goodspeed’s Festival of New Musicals does, indeed, focus on new musicals — not only staged readings of fresh works but, on Saturday, an announcement of a trio of new pieces to be produced later this year at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre in Chester. 

One of those Norma Terris-bound musicals boasts a book by Alfred Uhry, who also wrote “Driving Miss Daisy.” He was at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam Saturday and spoke of his in-development musical, “My Paris,” about famed French painter Toulouse-Lautrec. It features songs by French songwriter Charles Aznavour, with English lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. Directing the production, which will run July 23 through Aug. 16, will be choreographer and director Kathleen Marshall, who has won three Tony awards, most recently for 2011’s revival of “Anything Goes.” 

Marshall is a Goodspeed alum, having choreographed “Swinging on a Star” here. 

Uhry, too, has worked at Goodspeed in the past, recalling on Saturday such shows as “Little Johnny Jones,” “Funny Face” and, as he phrased it, “one about golfing.” 

“I learned a lot up here,” Uhry said. “I’m really excited to come back.” 

Bob Alwine, Goodspeed associate producer, told the crowd assembled at the Opera House for the new musical preview, “We talk about triple threats in the theater. This man (Uhry) is truly a triple threat, in that he’s won an Oscar, two Tonys and a Pulitzer.” 

Uhry said that Marshall and her husband, producer Scott Landis, asked if he’d be interested in working on a Toulouse-Lautrec show with them. 

“The idea of working with Kathleen was tempting, and also the score was written by Charles Aznavour,” he said. 

Clearly, the story of Toulouse-Lautrec held an appeal, too. Uhry explained the artist’s tortured background. 

“His parents were first cousins, which is probably not a really good idea, and his bone structure was all messed up. He broke his legs a lot when he was a little boy. After he was 9, his legs never grew, but the rest of him did,” Uhry said. 

He was raised an aristocrat. It was when he moved to Paris, though, that he found the place he felt he belonged. 

Uhry said Toulouse-Lautrec was “a man who was never really able to be accepted in the world he wanted to be accepted in because he was so odd-looking. He was a very sensitive man and a man who saw beauty in places most people don’t see beauty ... in rough, raw street people and prostitutes and street dancers and thieves.” 

He noted there was both joy and heartbreak in the painter’s life. 

“I can’t wait to wallow inside this show,” Uhry said. 

The other new musicals to be developed at the Norma Terris: “The Theory of Relativity” (May 7-31) by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill and “Indian Joe” (Oct. 22-Nov. 15) by Elizabeth A. Davis and Christine Henry. Davis — Tony-nominated for Broadway’s “Once” — has been a writer in residence at Goodspeed for the past two weeks. “Indian Joe” is a semi-autobiographical piece about a Texas beauty queen who befriends a homeless Native American man. 

“The Theory of Relativity,” inspired by personal stories from college students whom Bartram and Hill interviewed, was featured as part of Goodspeed’s Festival of New Musicals last year. When audience members — many of whom are regulars at this annual festival — heard during Saturday’s new musical preview that “Relativity” was going to be brought back and produced at the Norma Terris, they applauded. 

“Wow, you liked it as much as I did,” Alwine said. 

Bartram and Hill’s show “The Story of My Life,” by the way, was at Goodspeed before it moved onto Broadway in 2009. 

The new musicals that were given public staged readings during this weekend’s festival, meanwhile, were “Outlaws” by Alexander Sage Oyen and James Presson, and “The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes” by Christopher Dimond and Michael Kooman. The last show to be performed is “For Tonight,” by Shenelle Williams, Spencer Williams and Whitney Rhodes at 1 p.m. today. The casts consist of senior music-theater students from the Hartt School in Hartford and Boston Conservatory. 

This is the 10th annual Goodspeed festival, and it has developed an extremely loyal fan base. How loyal? One devotee, Bill Lott, has been attending for seven years — and that’s even after he moved from Connecticut to Dagsboro, Del., in 2011. He and his wife always come back to the state for the event. When she had a conflict this year, though, Lott brought his 14-year-old granddaughter, Sarah Lott, who lives on Cape Cod. 

Bill Lott said, “It’s a super theater bargain. I mean, you get three shows, dinner, all these symposiums and all their presentations for $99 per person. It makes a great weekend.” 

He spoke, too, about the caliber of theater here — something he hasn’t found in his area of Delaware. 

Sarah, meanwhile, was impressed with her first festival, saying, “It’s really exciting, just the quality of performances and being able to see such cool performances all in one weekend — you don’t get to do that very often.” 

There are seminars, too. In one, for instance, production designer Paul Tate dePoo III talked about the sets he was designing for Goodspeed’s upcoming “Guys and Dolls.” In another session, Jennifer Ashley Tepper told tales from her “Untold Stories of Broadway” book. She spoke, for instance, about the Shubert Theatre, which has several tunnels connecting it to other Broadway theaters. The tunnels were built so the Shuberts could have access to all their theaters without going outside, but now the tunnels are a place where actors sometimes hang out between shows. 

Another Shubert story: She recalled Robert Morse, who starred in 1959’s “Take Me Along” at the Shubert, telling her how his character used to be offstage for 15 minutes. So Morse would often use that time to go up to the theater’s second balcony and, unrecognized by theatergoers, watch the show — or he’d even go next door and watch 10 minutes of the musical “Fiorello!”

k.dorsey@theday.com