music theatre

My music theatre work began with The Garden Venture at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It was an exploration of two things - the physical requirements and possibilities of live performance; and the dramatic possibilities and pitfalls of combining music, words and sung voice.

Music theatre can produce layered, structurally-driven work with unique possibilities for surprise and for simultaneous communication on different levels, conscious and unconscious, intellectual and emotional.

But get it wrong and you get unfocused story-telling, inaudible word-setting, self-conscious lyricism, and minimal intellectual content.

What’s needed is effective communication, in both directions, between writer and composer. You don’t need to duplicate each other’s skills. You do need to understand each other’s intentions – and to be able to balance pragmatism with integrity. You also need awareness of the technical complexities you’re setting up for singers, and of the practicalities of production and performance space.

Ultimately, music theatre reaches an audience through heightened experience, which makes it one of the most potentially powerful of art forms.

I love its blending of disciplines and skills.