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Post by viserys on May 1, 2017 16:51:11 GMT
And really, what was the last risky and modern musical to take up a West End theatre for an open run and flop? Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but probably Spring Awakening, right? One thing I say for London is that the "fringe" has become much better in the last 10 years or so. I'm sure Spring Awakening would have done better in a small venue like Southwark. Likewise, I don't think that In the Heights had run for as long as it eventually did in a West End venue. Look at what happened to Scottsboro Boys, when that transfered. Fun Home is now directly going to the fringe as well. Broadway tends to put smallish shows ON Broadway and people seem to be willing to part with their money for these shows over there, but not here. I do think the UK would be ready for something fresh and new. It was ready for dancing cats as far back as 1981...
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 17:21:44 GMT
And really, what was the last risky and modern musical to take up a West End theatre for an open run and flop? Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but probably Spring Awakening, right? One thing I say for London is that the "fringe" has become much better in the last 10 years or so. I'm sure Spring Awakening would have done better in a small venue like Southwark. Likewise, I don't think that In the Heights had run for as long as it eventually did in a West End venue. Look at what happened to Scottsboro Boys, when that transfered. Fun Home is now directly going to the fringe as well. Broadway tends to put smallish shows ON Broadway and people seem to be willing to part with their money for these shows over there, but not here. I do think the UK would be ready for something fresh and new. It was ready for dancing cats as far back as 1981... I agree but then again I guess we'll never know because these shows aren't given a chance for a West End run which would include a big West End marketing campaign, bigger names in the cast etc. that could get more bums in seats. In the Heights for instance I thought was a great production but I thought half the cast were pretty amateurish which made me not want to return more than once, whereas if there had been a cast of the calibre of the original Broadway cast, I would have been there much more. Spring Awakening is an interesting one because that was really the first show after Rent to dare to go so edgy and young again and I imagine at the time it was pretty shocking to see a show like that take up a big commercial theatre space. Now we tend to get at least one of these types of shows every year coming along, which again may make audiences more receptive. Whilst Fun Home is technically a Broadway production coming to the fringe, there's only going to be around 200 less seats than there was at Circle in the Square where it played on Broadway. I think a big part of the decision to take it to a smaller theatre is to do with the effect it has on the audience to be in an intimate space with that show. I imagine that was particularly important for this production as it will be a re-imagining from the Broadway director, so I'm sure he had a say in not having it in a bigger space. I also think British audiences would be more receptive to these smaller types of shows if they were to originate here. It's one thing to see a show that you may have already seen on Broadway a few years back or that you've heard the cast recording to repeatedly and quite another to discover something new. Just think about how people flocked to Groundhog Day here, whereas in NYC it's a wet fish at the box office. It's always going to be more interesting to see something that audiences haven't seen anywhere else yet. Not to mentions shows like In the Heights are very Americanized. Most people that live here don't have a clue what Washington Heights is, whereas that show was a success on Broadway largely because of the latinx community that inhabit Manhattan. If a British writer were to write a show about a neighbourhood in London, British audiences would be more likely to flock to it I think. But yes, thank goodness for the fringe taking these shows on.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on May 1, 2017 18:05:49 GMT
The venues that you need to get a decent tryout in London for the West End are the Young Vic, Lyric Hammersmith, National (obviously), Donmar, all of which will get you professional standards of production. They try their best on limited budgets but places like Southwark, Union and such aren't in the same league. Maybe a producer can step in to help upscale and give them enough to buy extra preparation and rehearsal time but that's very rare.
Even with that, the edgier shows like Spring Awakening, Scottsboro Boys, maybe Fun Home too, struggle against the commercial feelgood stuff. Shows like Mormon and Kinky Boots are as safe as anything, which is why they sell and why they get investors in place for a direct West End run. Maybe The Other Palace will come good but it's early days yet.
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Post by sondheimhats on May 1, 2017 18:08:49 GMT
As an American who has spent the last 8 months in the UK, I'd like to weigh in on this. I've observed several things about the difference between British and American musical theatre that I think contribute to the issue. Some of what I have to say may be a bit controversial, but I'm just gonna go for it anyway.
As others have already said, musical theatre is an inherently American art form. It is, indeed, in our theatrical DNA. That isn't to say that all American musicals are better than all British musicals, but it does mean that American musical theatre writers in general simply have a better cultural understanding of how to construct a good musical, how to make the music and lyrics work together to advance the plot, develop character, and deepen the emotion. As others have pointed out, Billy Elliot and Matilda have been the most successful recent British musicals, and I genuinely believe it's because they manage to achieve that synergy. Billy Elliot even goes so far as to utilize dance to further develop the character and deepen the emotions, an added layer that musicals these days rarely achieve. I don't think that British musical theatre writers are unwilling to take risks. I think London Road and A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, for example, were both risky pieces of musical theatre, but IMO they were too intellectual, and failed to use the music to serve the story in a significant way. I have a hunch that "Committee" at the Donmar will have the same problem.
Also, British composers tend to prefer very different sorts of melodic structures than Americans, and though I can't speak for everyone, I think it just sounds kind of gross. British musical theatre scores often sound very dissonant and chaotic. Matilda is an example of this, although I think Minchin (who I realize is Australian) manages to utilize that sound to the show's advantage. Still, I think some American audiences were turned off by it, which is why it was such a divisive show in the States, and why it lost the Tony for Best Musical and Best Score.
The sound I'm referring to could be heard in shows like Wonder.Land, London Road, and the recent Peter Pan (which was not a proper musical, but did have a lot of original, non-diegetic music). You can also hear it in Barlow, as well as Styles, though not as much. You can hear it a LOT in Andrew Lloyd Webber's work. In my opinion, ALW is virtually incapable of writing a cohesive musical theatre score, and large portions of his shows are needlessly dissonant and highly unpleasant. Webber gets away with it, and rakes in millions, because he always throws in a few beautiful melodies that get stuck in the audience's head as they leave the theatre. Who's going to remember the awful "Mungojeree and Rumpleteezer" when they have "Memory" to sing on the way home?
All entirely subjective, I know. And there are, of course, exceptions. But that's this American's take on the situation. Sorry to offend the Web-heads out there.
EDIT: I'd just like to clarify that I'm not one of those people who thinks all musicals should have "hummable" melodies. In fact, I hate it when people say things like that. I'm all in favor of dissonance, complexity, alternative sounds, etc. But only when it helps the storytelling, like in "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812" to use a current example. I just don't feel that's the case with most British musicals, Matilda being the most notable exception.
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 18:15:35 GMT
Let's not write Fun Home off yet, I'm expecting it to sell very well.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on May 1, 2017 18:54:47 GMT
Thanks sondheimhats for the interesting and thought provoking view. Firstly, there are clear transatlantic differences in style, yet the dominant culture (the USA in this case) has gradually become the unspoken arbiter of musical theatre right and wrong. Understand, however, that for the UK the whole question of the US's ability to be that arbiter is in question. With Europe we are traditionally much closer in terms of style (hence the success of the Boublil/Schoenberg shows, less jazz inflected, more diatonically based) and, because there is no such dominance (well, not since German operetta and, there, Gilbert & Sullivan had a large say) there is no real issue.
Some decades ago and in a different place on the internet I was berated by an angry American commenter, saying that I didn't have a right to comment on American musicals and that British directors were 'ruining our shows' by emphasising darker elements, foregrounding more naturalistic acting etc. (I think that was the Hytner Carousel, it was over twenty years ago and the disgust an non traditional casting and such has, I hope, moved on).
So, what an American sees is not necessarily what a Brit sees (or hears), where the blandness of much US musical theatre can grate (though generally not via the Sondheim of your screen name), the feelgood piety and shallowness of intent deflate.
As such, London Road and Pacifist's Guide, although aimed at an audience who are smaller in number, if not as receptive to the dominant culture, can be to someone like myself a breath of fresh harmonic air. A show that interrogates a neighbourhood terrorised by a serial killer? Fine. Sung in a style that nobody has really heard before. Thank you very much and give me a bit more dissonance please, the grit that makes me work a bit more at listening. Cancer? Well, why not and merge it with a bit of performance art so that, in the second half, the show decides that a musical is the wrong medium for the story? Brilliant.
I looked at the Outer Critics Circle awards last week and, after a quick check if the panel, had my thoughts confirmed. Someone in the same circle as the person who warned me off 'our musicals', someone who had lambasted Minchin's 'Groundhog Day' score was there.
To my mind the British musical should stop looking across the Atlantic and trying to ape what is done there, it's a fool's errand, it should create a different type of musical theatre and trust in itself.
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Post by lynette on May 1, 2017 19:05:01 GMT
V interesting about diff between American and British musical but honestly, if it is good then it is good. I don't think we are so misunderstood. Our hit shows are hits there, no? I think part of the prob is the money?...producers want mega hit shows that will run and run, in other words a product. If it is based on other already successful products like the music of a past star or stars, then fine, they will find the dosh. Dosh will appear. But something smaller and original won't look worth the risk. So writers and composers can't get their stuff developed. Not rocket science. Just sad.
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 19:42:33 GMT
Our hit shows are hits there, no? producers want mega hit shows that will run and run All two of the British hits from the last decade were relatively successful on Broadway yes (although both closed there before their West End runs did). They're failing to make any mega hit shows that will run and run is the point.
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Post by lynette on May 1, 2017 19:48:33 GMT
Yes yes, I see that. But nobody will give you a revolving set, a full orchestra and a line of dancing llamas unless an American pop star sang the lyrics in 1950, will they?
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 19:52:30 GMT
Yes yes, I see that. But nobody will give you a revolving set, a full orchestra and a line of dancing llamas unless an American pop star sang the lyrics in 1950, will they? Well maybe they should try it and see what happens. They gave Lin-Manuel Miranda that and it resulted in him having the 5th best selling album of 2016, making a cast album sell more than 99% of the American pop stars did themselves.
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Post by theglenbucklaird on May 1, 2017 20:03:45 GMT
Great thread. Don't watch musicals so have nothing to offer but the standard of discussion and views expressed are all very eloquently well argued. Have some very good writers on this board.
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 20:16:39 GMT
Great thread. Don't watch musicals so have nothing to offer but the standard of discussion and views expressed are all very eloquently well argued. Have some very good writers on this board. Some of them are so eloquent it makes me think they should try writing a show.
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Post by sondheimhats on May 1, 2017 20:47:19 GMT
Thanks sondheimhats for the interesting and thought provoking view. Firstly, there are clear transatlantic differences in style, yet the dominant culture (the USA in this case) has gradually become the unspoken arbiter of musical theatre right and wrong. Understand, however, that for the UK the whole question of the US's ability to be that arbiter is in question. With Europe we are traditionally much closer in terms of style (hence the success of the Boublil/Schoenberg shows, less jazz inflected, more diatonically based) and, because there is no such dominance (well, not since German operetta and, there, Gilbert & Sullivan had a large say) there is no real issue. Some decades ago and in a different place on the internet I was berated by an angry American commenter, saying that I didn't have a right to comment on American musicals and that British directors were 'ruining our shows' by emphasising darker elements, foregrounding more naturalistic acting etc. (I think that was the Hytner Carousel, it was over twenty years ago and the disgust an non traditional casting and such has, I hope, moved on). So, what an American sees is not necessarily what a Brit sees (or hears), where the blandness of much US musical theatre can grate (though generally not via the Sondheim of your screen name), the feelgood piety and shallowness of intent deflate. As such, London Road and Pacifist's Guide, although aimed at an audience who are smaller in number, if not as receptive to the dominant culture, can be to someone like myself a breath of fresh harmonic air. A show that interrogates a neighbourhood terrorised by a serial killer? Fine. Sung in a style that nobody has really heard before. Thank you very much and give me a bit more dissonance please, the grit that makes me work a bit more at listening. Cancer? Well, why not and merge it with a bit of performance art so that, in the second half, the show decides that a musical is the wrong medium for the story? Brilliant. I looked at the Outer Critics Circle awards last week and, after a quick check if the panel, had my thoughts confirmed. Someone in the same circle as the person who warned me off 'our musicals', someone who had lambasted Minchin's 'Groundhog Day' score was there. To my mind the British musical should stop looking across the Atlantic and trying to ape what is done there, it's a fool's errand, it should create a different type of musical theatre and trust in itself. All very fair points. I totally agree that our tastes have been formed by the culture of our respective countries, and because of that, the music styles across the pond will naturally have a tendency to grate on our ears. I also totally agree that lots of American musicals - even successful ones - do have a very bland, generic quality to their scores, but more and more I think we can see more ambitious and carefully constructed scores getting the attention they deserve here in the US. Your comments about London Road and Pacifist's Guide are apt, and I do think both shows were pushing the boundaries of musical theatre, which I appreciate. But the manner in which they pushed the boundaries was very telling. As I said, the music seemed to be there for intellectual purposes more than emotional/storytelling purposes. Pushing boundaries of the sake of pushing boundaries, I might argue. I find it to be very misguided, but I can certainly understand why one might find it refreshing.
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Post by Phantom of London on May 1, 2017 23:20:19 GMT
A well worn adage is 'you go to the West End to see a play and Broadway to see a show', however I have seen brilliant shows in London and cracking plays on Broadway. On Broadway there would be no infrastructure to create something like War Horse or Curious Incident of the Dog.............., they haven't got the the theatre creative process that could make such a piece.
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Post by kathryn on May 2, 2017 8:08:26 GMT
Honestly, I think we just have different musical theatre cultures now. I often find 'Broadway musicals' a bit strange - there seems to be such a formula! There will be a tap number, whether it's necessary for the story or not....
Obviously there are notable exceptions (I'm guessing Hamilton doesn't have a tap number...). But it seems like Broadway audiences know what they like and like what they know - and it's not necessarily what British audiences like any more.
I think the worst thing a British musical can do is try to be a 'Broadway musical' - anyone remember how 'I Can't Sing!' tried it? It wasn't a bad show, either, but the American-style production values really didn't suit it.
These things do tend to go in cycles, mind. Lin-Manuel Miranda will I'm sure inspire writers and producers to take a few more risks.
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 8:12:09 GMT
Honestly I can't remember the last Broadway musical I saw with a tap number unless we count Groundhog Day which started in the UK.
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Post by kathryn on May 2, 2017 11:47:31 GMT
Well, maybe it's just the ones I tend to see! I'm pretty sure Groundhog Day threw in the tap number just to tick that box, since it was Broadway-targetted.
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 11:51:17 GMT
Well, maybe it's just the ones I tend to see! I'm pretty sure Groundhog Day threw in the tap number just to tick that box, since it was Broadway-targetted. Can we start a campaign to have a tap dancing groundhog in everything though?
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Post by viserys on May 2, 2017 12:06:44 GMT
Honestly, I think we just have different musical theatre cultures now. I often find 'Broadway musicals' a bit strange - there seems to be such a formula! There will be a tap number, whether it's necessary for the story or not.... To be honest, I'd rather have a random tap number thrown into a show than the (for some time) ubiquitous whore number in European musicals. Virtually every musical in a historical setting seemed to have one number set in a brothel or seedy tavern, so the female chorus could do a dance routine in very little clothing or cheesy "historical hooker outfits" with lace, frills and corsets.
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 15:11:51 GMT
Honestly, I think we just have different musical theatre cultures now. I often find 'Broadway musicals' a bit strange - there seems to be such a formula! There will be a tap number, whether it's necessary for the story or not.... To be honest, I'd rather have a random tap number thrown into a show than the (for some time) ubiquitous whore number in European musicals. Virtually every musical in a historical setting seemed to have one number set in a brothel or seedy tavern, so the female chorus could do a dance routine in very little clothing or cheesy "historical hooker outfits" with lace, frills and corsets. What can I say. Us Europeans, we like whores. It's as simple as that.
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Post by viserys on May 2, 2017 16:59:44 GMT
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Post by Phantom of London on May 2, 2017 17:45:46 GMT
We had 2 musicals eligible for Tony nomination: Groundhog Day and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Where we do triumph is re-imaganing Broadway classics, where the Color Purple won the Tony last like, like La Cage Aux Folles did. Gypsy is still rumoured to be Broadway bound.
So it is not all gloom and doom and remember Miss Saigon and Sunset Boulevard playing Broadway tonight all started life in London.
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 18:09:13 GMT
We had 2 musicals eligible for Tony nomination: Groundhog Day and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Where we do triumph is re-imaganing Broadway classics, where the Color Purple won the Tony last like, like La Cage Aux Folles did. Gypsy is still rumoured to be Broadway bound. So it is not all gloom and doom and remember Miss Saigon and Sunset Boulevard playing Broadway tonight all started life in London. Yes you are right, London always smashes the quality of musical revivals in the West End, we always do it better than Broadway. There are more musical revivals opening in the West End each year than on Broadway but Broadway is more risky in terms of the more new musicals opening each year. The only true British musicals we've had recently are The Girls, Made in Dagenham (which I think would've lasted longer at a smaller venue), Mrs H Presents, Matilda and Charlie. Kinky Boots would've been a great British musical had it started in the Uk - great British story with British humour, no idea why it didn't start over here! The Bodyguard is also British too although set in America. Cilla is upcoming too. You have to hand it to the producers tho, without them there would be no new musicals. It's very risky especially given the state of new musicals in London at the moment. Producers are scared to loose money but without new shows it could get boring! I think the West End always does better plays than Broadway and gets fab casts but Broadway does beat it in terms of BRAND NEW musicals but London beat them in musical revivals.
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Post by primitivewallflower on May 2, 2017 20:33:43 GMT
1) In the USA the tax structure is very different. The cash the wealthy can use to support new musicals flows far more freely. The risk is higher, but worth taking for them. They can afford to "think big" from the very start in a way the UK can't. If you take Miz - that was using public cash to start with, and much else followed for Big Mac after. If we take that as being the same as US tax breaks, the result is the same. I think there's an economic angle too but I see it differently. The cost of producing a Broadway show is more expensive than West End for a whole host of different reasons -- stronger NYC unions, generally (IMHO) higher standards of physical theatre infrastructure in NYC, fewer subsidies in the States, etc. One side-effect of this higher cost is that it's incentivized the network of feeder regional theatres / workshops that incubate so many of Broadway's hits. The upside is that it's a way of managing risk and so makes investors more comfortable engaging with musicals (the downside is that you could argue it homogenizes shows). Let's remember too that while theatre and cinema are distinct art forms, many skills are substitutable between them and the industries do compete with one another for writing, musical, and production talent to a certain extent. But this is contained in the US by both its large population and also by physical distance. The epicenter of the US film industry, Los Angeles, is on the complete opposite side of the continent from the epicenter of the US theatre industry, New York (fun fact: Baghdad is closer to London than LA is to NY). That doesn't eliminate cross-pollination between theatre and cinema but it has given each industry the elbow room to grow independent talent ecosystems in the US. By contrast, in the UK each of these industries is London-based which I would guess has stunted the growth of each.
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Post by Phantom of London on May 2, 2017 21:59:38 GMT
TheatreMonkey make some great point, as does primitive wallflower.
I agree with the economics of producing on Broadway, take Groundhog Day, it came with a price tag of a hefty $18.5m, but hello all that dosh for a musical that realised and developed in London, the sets and costumes were all done here, so this is a breathtaking figure. It look like Broadway is too chubby, with too many middle management.
I never realised shipping was so expensive.
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2017 8:04:10 GMT
People are pretty overweight in this country, maybe everybody's fingers are too chubby to play the piano? Which would explain why Gary Barlow has taken over
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2017 8:13:12 GMT
Or maybe since ALW died we have to come to terms with the fact that we r just not talented enough? Sure, we can poo plays but we just talentless schmucks when it comes to show ditties
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2017 8:15:27 GMT
Another angle money-wise is in the subsidised sector musicals are funded far less by the various awarding bodies. So there's less of the innovative grass roots stuff happening, work shopping new stuff because there isn't (as above) the commercial money, but also musicals don't generally attract as much of the funding pots in grants either. My personal theory on this is that it comes from both sides- people making musicals don't think they'll be taken seriously for funding, so don't apply, less apply so when the do, it's a more unknown commodity so less likely to make it through in a competitive field...and also a chunk of good old fashioned snobbery from some areas too The subsidised sector is a relatively tiny area, but if we were nurturing composers the way we do playwrights then we'd have more UK based composers that aren't former boyband members.
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2017 8:37:56 GMT
Another angle money-wise is in the subsidised sector musicals are funded far less by the various awarding bodies. So there's less of the innovative grass roots stuff happening, work shopping new stuff because there isn't (as above) the commercial money, but also musicals don't generally attract as much of the funding pots in grants either. My personal theory on this is that it comes from both sides- people making musicals don't think they'll be taken seriously for funding, so don't apply, less apply so when the do, it's a more unknown commodity so less likely to make it through in a competitive field...and also a chunk of good old fashioned snobbery from some areas too The subsidised sector is a relatively tiny area, but if we were nurturing composers the way we do playwrights then we'd have more UK based composers that aren't former boyband members. Yes but no. A valid point, but the likes of Phantom, Les Mis, Oliver, Saigon, etc. the musicals with effect and long standing presence never came from grants or funding pots. Correct me if I'm wrong but no 'hit musical' has ever come from a funded application based background.
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2017 8:43:23 GMT
Another angle money-wise is in the subsidised sector musicals are funded far less by the various awarding bodies. So there's less of the innovative grass roots stuff happening, work shopping new stuff because there isn't (as above) the commercial money, but also musicals don't generally attract as much of the funding pots in grants either. My personal theory on this is that it comes from both sides- people making musicals don't think they'll be taken seriously for funding, so don't apply, less apply so when the do, it's a more unknown commodity so less likely to make it through in a competitive field...and also a chunk of good old fashioned snobbery from some areas too The subsidised sector is a relatively tiny area, but if we were nurturing composers the way we do playwrights then we'd have more UK based composers that aren't former boyband members. Yes but no. A valid point, but the likes of Phantom, Les Mis, Oliver, Saigon, etc. the musicals with effect and long standing presence never came from grants or funding pots. Correct me if I'm wrong but no 'hit musical' has ever come from a funded application based background. I wasn't saying it was the definitive element- I said this went along with what Monkey and others were saying about the commercial element.
But the point I think is valid that if we were as a nation investing in musical theatre composers in this way it wouldn't have a negative impact. And no, we haven't had a hit from that kind of source because relatively so little is put into it...so that theory isn't that strong either.
Musicals on the whole are always going to come from the commercial sector, on the larger scale being so expensive to run they simply need to be. However, I do believe that we could create a clutch of 'Jason Robert Browns' or 'Duncan Sheiks' (both of whom started and continue to do work on the smaller scale end but are critically regarded) if the arts funding sector did direct a bit more into that sector.
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