The edition of The Stage that is on newsstands today (or your mailbox, postal strike permitting, in the next few days) has a front page picture of three glamorous musical theatre professionals – and me! The pro’s are musical theatre actress (and new mum) Anna-Jane Casey, rising composer Grant Olding (who is currently under commission from the National Theatre, no less, to write a new musical), and musical director/actor David Randall – and I am photographed looming large behind them!
We’ve been brought together under the auspices of producer Neil Eckersley to be the judges of a new songwriting competition that’s launched in the paper today, the winning entry of which will be performed in this year’s Christmas in New York gala at the Lyric Theatre on December 9, produced by Eckersley as part of the occasional Notes from New York series. [Click below to continue reading]
This is the second showcase for Christmas-themed music, but I have to confess that I don’t have particularly fond memories of last year’s Christmas in New York show – only because literally hours before it I had managed to write off my car completely, by turning into a street that I thought was one-way but in fact found myself instead directly in the path of an oncoming bus hurtling up the inside lane in the other direction. But even if I was on the wrong track myself, the Notes from New York series is entirely on the right one!
From its inception at the Arts Theatre in 2003 with a programme devoted to the work of New York’s Jason Robert Brown and Andrew Lippa, it has offered terrific occasional showcases for writers whose work isn’t as well known on this side of the Atlantic – or even particularly on the other side, either – as it should be. It has also travelled more closely to home, with a Not(es) from New York show that was devoted to British composers Charles Miller and the aforementioned Grant Olding.
The showcases have travelled peripetically between the Arts, Donmar Warehouse, Trafalgar Studios, Duchess and Lyric Theatre, and have featured a galaxy of musical theatre actors from co-founder Paul Spicer to Julie Atherton, Anna-Jane Casey, Shona Lindsay, Samuel Barnett, Rebecca Thornhill, Amy Nuttall, Jon Lee and numerous others. As well as showcasing new and emerging composers, the shows have also regularly featured young new West End talent too: I see that this year’s Christmas in New York line-up will include Steven Webb, Barnett’s successor as Posner in The History Boys.
Notes for the Stage is another step in expanding the reach of the initiative, looking to find a composer or team who have never been heard in the West End before, and submissions are being solicited of original songs centred around Christmas or encompassing a predominantly seasonal theme. The entry form is in the current issue of The Stage, or details can be registered online here. So if you have secretly nurtured a passion to hear a song you have written performed on a West End stage by a professional cast, get writing – and we’ll get judging soon!
