West End concert announced to celebrate new musical theatre writing
Pictured (clockwise from top left): Leo Munby, Annabel Mutale Reed, Jack Williams and Freya Smith
Aria Entertainment and Adam Lenson Production will present a concert to celebrate the Chamber Musical Project on 4 October at the Garrick Theatre in the West End.
Audiences will join the selected fifteen writing teams from across the UK to hear an array of new songs from the chamber musicals that they are writing. This concert celebration gives audiences the opportunity to listen to extracts from all of the longlisted shows and be introduced to a new generation of musical theatre artists.
The writers will be joined by some of the West End’s biggest stars, fresh faces and a house band to share an evening of unexpected, exhilarating and extraordinary new musical theatre.
The two newly commissioned shows which have been selected as the winners by the Aria ALP Chamber Musical Project for further development, mentorship and financial support are: Leo Munby and Annabel Mutale Reed’s Eartha, Eddie, and the Upside-Down Tree (a contemporary fairy tale about wishing for love in a world of missed connections) and Echoes by Freya Smith and Jack Williams (a new musical about a queer relationship told from two perspectives, in two parts).
The concert will also feature work from the writers Christina Bloom (Detached), Cordelia O’Driscoll (Bitter/Sweet), Emelie Odukwe and Lily Vincent-Frankland (At The Centre), Guy Woolf and Isla Van Tricht (How To Save The World), Tommy Antonio and Robert Casey (Harder Baby), Hilmi Jaidin (Clickbait), Jen Green and Caroline Wigmore (Elizabeth Holmes: How to bleed dry in Silicon Valley), Michelle Payne & Craig Webb (Enthusiastically, Yes!), Natalie Pound, Sam Young and Sam Hoppen (Thanks I’m Cured), Jonathan O'Neill and Isaac Savage (Letting Go), Poppy Burton-Morgan and Robin Simões da Silva (Treehouse), Sarah-Louise Young, Richard Link and Paul Chronnell (Escape Room) and Eden Tredwell (Open Mic 1803).
Katy Lipson said: “We are incredibly proud to have launched a new musical theatre writing award over the last year and to be presenting a night showcasing 15 submissions for that award on top of the set for the much-loved American chamber musical The Last 5 Years. We are hugely committed to the future of New British Chamber Musicals and cannot wait to see this award grow."
Adam Lenson added: “We have been aware of how few opportunities there are for writers to be supported as they develop new musicals and it has been so wonderful to collaborate with Katy to create a little more space for the UK’s writing talent. We hope other theatres and producers will follow our lead and commission and stage more new musical theatre. We are so excited to see what Annabel, Leo, Jack and Freya create and can’t wait to celebrate them and the other longlisted writers in the West End in October.”
For more information and to book tickets, please click here.
