Getting the word out on new musicals…

At least the autumn season there sees the start of previews this week for a new musical Memphis, set in the rock ‘n’ roll world but with both an original story (by Joe diPietro) and score (by Bon Jovi’s David Bryan), while next month sees the transfer from off-Broadway of Fela!, that uses the music of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti (no, I haven’t heard of him, either, but his work is apparently a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies) to create what is described as a “provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater.” That’s at least stretching the template of musical theatre a bit; but otherwise, we’re being thrown back on some safe(r) revivals: Bye Bye Birdie (already in preview), Finian’s Rainbow and Ragtime are all on the schedule imminently.

In London, we may be in the midst of the busiest autumn of new productions of plays that I can remember; but there’s barely a musical, new or old, amongst them. Only the Young Vic is reviving Annie Get Your Gun (of all things), and then Legally Blonde - the Musical arrives in December, to begin a long preview period at the Savoy before opening in mid-January. Otherwise, there’s the odd fringe entry, like the arrival of Christopher Hamilton’s debut musical Over the Threshold from its Edinburgh premiere to Jermyn Street Theatre this week, or the British premiere of Michael John LaChiusa’s First Lady Suite at the Union next week - both, coincidentally, presented under the auspices of Take Note Theatre, a young company dedicated to bringing “lesser known musical works to new audiences as well as encouraging, producing and developing our own shows through to full production.”

It’s youthful initiatives like this where the future may well lie. At least they instinctively recognise one important factor: it’s all very well to workshop shows endlessly (the US model), but the best way to make shows happen is by actually getting them up on their feet and in front of an audience, however small that audience might be (Jermyn Street has 70 seats, the Union around 50).

On the weekend, I saw another option: the revival of the old-fashioned regional try-out route. While regional theatres have all but abandoned doing original musicals as part of their regular output - they are simply too expensive and too risky to programme, so instead tried-and-tested revivals are offered, usually in the panto Christmas slot - I travelled to Ipswich on Saturday to see a new musical version of the 1946 Frank Capra movie It’s a Wonderful Life, being tried out at the New Wolsey Theatre there. I looked up the last (and only) time I’ve been there before I went, and was astonished to discover that it was all of 20 years ago, when Trevor Nunn did a try-out there for the UK premiere he directed of Stephen Schwartz’s The Baker’s Wife in 1989, before bringing it to the West End’s Phoenix Theatre (where it sadly ran for just over a month, and I’m not referring to the running time of the show but the length of the entire run).

This is a delightful, intimate auditorium (seating 400), and Ipswich has an increasing arts profile: the New Wolsey now has Gecko physical theatre company based there as an associate company, and a brand-new dance theatre, the Jerwood DanceHouse, is being built in the town, too, as part of a new residential tower, while the independent Red Rose Chain Film and Theatre Company is soon to have its own, purpose-built waterfront home, the Witchbottle Theatre. The town has also developed its own annual fringe festival (Pulse, which drew an admiring blog](http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/aug/05/edinburgh-fringe-ipswich-pulse-festival) from Andrew Haydon on The Guardian website, which noted that it “serves its local constituency perfectly. It doesn’t get, but nor does it need, much coverage from the national press.”

Nor, frankly, has the Wolsey attracted much national attention of late, but partly thanks to the services of a London theatre PR for It’s a Wonderful Life, many of us have made the trip for It’s A Wonderful Life; Variety’s David Benedict was there on Saturday afternoon along with me, and the Daily Mail’s Patrick Marmion, the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish, and Sam Marlowe and John Peter for respectively The Times and the Sunday Times, have all been in. Though they’ve already been rewarded with a four-star review in the Daily Mail, it may be a little too early for such detailed scrutiny - though critical reactions are, of course, part of the process of the development of a new musical, I hope that the creators aren’t either lulled into a false sense of security by the positive notice, or sent off track by others that may follow.

There’s something here already, but there’s also serious work still to be done. But it’s encouraging, at least, that the first steps have been taken towards realising this work so confidently and ambitiously; and what’s enabled Ipswich to produce It’s a Wonderful Life (with a cast of 17, plus 7 kids and orchestra of four) is commercial enhancement money from London comedy, television and occasional theatre management Avalon Promotions (who also previously took Jerry Springer - the Opera from BAC to develop at the National in 2003, before then taking it into the West End). I hope Avalon stick with it, but also accept this as only a first draft. Just as Steve Brown’s last, Olivier Award winning musical Spend Spend Spend began its life at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, it could yet end up in the West End, but it needs careful nurturing.

And that’s what British musical theatre needs more of, in every way. Last night I heard some of how much raw talent is on offer, in a showcase evening of new musical writing called Snappy Title, staged at Piccadilly’s Pigalle Club to mark the launch of New Musicals Network, a new networking site for those interested in the creation and promotion of new musical theatre works. The evening showcased the work of some 15 composers or composing teams, most of them as yet unknown, but who include one, Joe Robinson, who is just 17 and another team, Julian Chenery and Matt Gimblett, who have been writing together for nearly as long as long as Joe has been alive!

The best part of last night was that it gave a live outing to songs that exist otherwise mainly as demos, and that’s how songs live: by being sung. (A terrific cast of young West End talent was assembled to give them their best shot, too; though I was shocked by the professional discourtesy of two of them, Jenna Lee James and Jon Boydon, in whispering comments to each other constantly while they waited their turn onstage as Lucy May Barker performed Joe Robinson’s number).

New musicals are clearly still being written, furiously, all over the place, but the challenge is now to translate that into wider distribution and hopefully production. Some composers are still trying the old-fashioned route of producing CD showcases - I’ve just received a beautifully produced one for Gareth Peter’s Bluebird, that features a cast that includes Ramin Karimloo, the current Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera and who will shortly be starring in Lloyd Webber’s follow-up Love Never Dies.

But I’ve also recently come across an even bolder attempt to use the internet to harness a potentially global audience to be interested in a new musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber may be getting his Phantom to twitter ahead of the launch of Love Never Dies, but as Lloyd Webber told me himself last year, the musical genre itself “will continue to change in ways that neither you nor I can see at the moment. In the next year or two - and it sure as hell won’t be me - there will be some kind of musical or entertainment that is evolved on the internet.”

And last week a musical writer Matthew Sweetapple wrote to me to say, “I read, with interest, your piece in which it’s suggested that Andrew Lloyd Webber believes the next big musical will originate on the internet. With this in mind, I wanted to bring the success of our on-line musical story to your attention as it demonstrates perfectly how well suited the internet/downloads etc are for musical story telling. Rockford’s Rock Opera was written by me, with Steve Punt (Now Show etc), it’s now been streamed by over 400,000 people and it’s being used in over 8,000 schools around the world. All though word of mouth on the web. I have loved musicals since I was very young. Crucially, for musical storytellers, the internet now provides an immediate world stage for our work.”

Now he wants to bring it to the theatre; as he wittily says, “Today the world, tomorrow the King’s Head?” Meanwhile, however, you can get a taster of what’s on offer by joining the online community: as Matthew says, “In true internet style, Part One is free so there’s lots to hear right now,” here.