To state the blindingly obvious, the internet is changing the way we both forge and maintain relationships of all kinds - to strike a personal note, I met both my current and previous partner online first. And just being here on this blog, I have forged all kinds of other professional as well as personal affinities. It’s a way for me to connect to the world, and the world to connect to me, on a daily basis. (Even my parents use it as a way of tracking what I’m up to).
On the one hand, it means I am living my life more publicly than ever before; but then as a critic my job is to put my opinions out there, and this forum is another way of doing so. Sometimes, I realise, there’s a danger of being too frank - admitting here to an error in my review of Waste, for instance, was picked up by the Independent on Sunday media diary on the weekend, but with speculation in the Observer on the same day that the Daily Mail may be buying the Indie titles for a mere pound (plus taking on their considerable debt liabilities), the Independent may soon have bigger concerns about maintaining their own independence than further publicising my own already admitted failings.
The internet is also having a very real and very practical effect on the world on the theatre.
While theatre exists first and foremost on the stage rather than the page (or computer screen), the power of the internet is being harnessed everywhere not just to let the world know that it is happening and promote it, but also to create a dialogue with its audiences. And more and more importantly, with and between its creators. Now that new musical theatre is so prohibitively expensive to actually produce, aspiring composers are turning to the web to showcase their work.
I’ve previously written here about how a concert appearance in London back in June by New York composer Jeff Blumenkrantz was triggered by a series of connections made on Facebook; now another American musical, Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days, opened last night at the Finborough for a five performance run of Sunday and Monday evenings, that can be tracked back to its young director Adam Lenson discovering its composer Adam Gwon on myspace.
It used to be that aspiring composers would have to send their work out into the great black void out there in a physical form of tapes and scripts, and would be lucky if they were even heard or read; indeed, many theatre producers won’t even entertain them. Yesterday I discovered on the website for Neal Street Productions, whose production of Shrek begins previews this weekend in New York, a specific disclaimer on their contact page: “We apologise but for legal reasons we do not accept unsolicited material and it will therefore be sent immediately back to sender.”
But now writers can put themselves out there and make themselves available to the world without those filters; and Gwon’s appearance in London with a show that only received its US premiere back in July is a heartening sign that it can and does work. But it is taking a new generation to do so: Adam Lenson is a twenty-something Cambridge graduate (in medicine), who is now pursuing his passion for theatre online but brilliantly bringing it back to where it ultimately counts: the stage.
And though I will definitely head to the Finborough should a nuclear winter ever engulf London (since I’ve never known it not to be less than overpoweringly hot in there), it has already turned into London’s hottest ticket - the entire run was sold out ahead of last night’s opening. Now that’s not entirely surprising with a run this short and a theatre this small - but it also shows a hunger and appetite for this kind of work in London that is not being met elsewhere.
Hello Mark,
I met your very proud Dad and Jack the dog this morning and he told me all about you. I am a musicals fanatic and have wanted to ask someone 'in the know' this question for the longest time. Why wasn't The Droswy Chaperone (in my opinion the best humoured musical of all time) a hit when it opened in London a couple of years ago ? Might it come back soon ? Loving your blog by the way. Mine's at www.annamaymangan.co.uk
Best Anna May