In the copy of The Stage currently on the newsstands (October 25), I have written I have written an extended essay on the current state of musical play, particularly when it comes to new writing, expanding on some of the themes I have been developing in this blog. (It’s one of the most useful things about keeping to the discipline of writing this almost every day that it enables one to think aloud!) But it’s also wonderful to see something I have previewed coming to fruition, as with the Perfect Pitch festival I also wrote about here. CLICK BELOW TO CONTINUE READING
I wish I had been able to go to more than just evening of this developmental festival that allows new musicals to receive public workshops, but because I was away in New York until Thursday I was only able to get the penultimate night on Saturday. Although part of the point of the festival is that it isn’t open to review (an embargo sadly not honoured by my fellow blogger Michael Coveney), but is intended to offer a protected space for creators of new musicals to show their work and receive constructive criticism from their peers, it demonstrates both that the work is being done – and that there is a hunger and appetite for it, too.
Most of it is probably destined to go no further; but a seed or two may have been planted – or revealed to be have been thrown on fallow ground. One of the creative team I spoke to on Saturday admitted that the workshop had shown that the subject wasn’t necessarily ripe for musicalisation; but at least the discovery was being made at workshop level, not production level.
At the same time, it was wonderful to see Upstairs at the Gatehouse – a really well-appointed, and decently sized, fringe venue that has long championed musicals and has strong local community support – so full for it. And industry professionals have been turning out to check things out, too: I was sat next to Jeremy Sams on Saturday, who had come along to seethe extract from Jared Dembowski and Susannnah Pearse’s Lost Boy since he knew one of the writers.
The people who really needed to be there, though, are producers. And that’s the gridlock around which musical theatre currently stalls: in the liner notes to the cast recording of the Off-Broadway musical I Love You Because, which I recently had delivered by Amazon after seeing the production at the Landor a few weeks ago, David Hurst identifies this succinctly. “Next time you hear someone say no one’s writing new musicals anymore – ignore them! They don’t know what they’re talking about. Lots of people are writing new msuicals these days, many of which have enormous potential both artistically and commercially. The problem is that no one is producing new msuicals anymore. Or at least it seems that fewer and fewer investors are willing to take a chance on something new – something untried – something unpoven.”
We shouldn’t forget that Andrew Lloyd Webber, of course, was once a new writer; so were Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein and George Gershwin. But they all came through in what now seems like another age. Encouragement and development happens differently now. And Perfect Pitch may be the perfect place for that process to have begun. Producers should take note.
Don't be so ridiculously prissy. What is so "sad" about Coveney or anyone else saying what he thinks about anything. Presumably, since you say the shows were not open to reviewers, Coveney paid a tenner and took his chances. Should he be then subject a gagging order either because he sometimes earns a living as a reviewer or because the producers' intention is to a offer a "protected" space to nuture new writing. I paid a tenner last weekend to see a show (yes, at the Gatehouse) which was, with due respect to the noble intentions of all concerned, unimaginably weak. When you charge money to admit the public, you are by definition staging a public event and must accept public criticism. While I am here, I should say that although I am a regular and interested reader of your interesting blog, I find your frequent discussion of the mechanics of reviewing and the various tacit and not-so-tacit conventions established by published reviewers and their employers by some distance the most tedious of your preoccupations. Best wishes though, SW.
That's fine, paying guest, you have a perfect right not to care about such conventions. But the fact is that they do exist, and exist for a reason. "Public criticism", fine, but Michael Coveney is not, even if he pays, a member of the public. With great power comes great responsibility, as was once said of The Amazing Spiderman, and sometimes that responsibility is not to yammer away about whatever you feel like in whatever terms you feel like.