Memorandum submitted by the Actors Centre
There is a palpable imbalance in the developmental
support available for the genre of musical theatre as compared
with nearly all forms of non-musical theatre.
As the UK's premier resource for the acting
profession, the Actors Centre represents the interests of actors
across all media and provides further professional development
in every aspect of the craft, for every genre and from traditional
technique to experimental exploration. It is a fundamental tenet
of the organisation that performers should be involved and associated
with the generation of new work, and for this reason we have valued
the presence of MMD in the building as movers and shakers in a
key area of creativity. The problem is that a vicious circle exists.
The musical is a popular medium, one of the
bastions of light entertainment culture, and the most conspicuous
examples of the genre are inevitably perceived as conservative
product: Les Miserables has been there a very long time;
Guys and Dolls will get you out of a box office pickle.
For this reason it has a hard time claiming the high ground rhetoric
of trailblazing and breaking new ground, reinvention and experiment.
Consequently there is very little support for new work that attempts
to innovate and any genre which lacks that activity will be in
danger of stagnation. For my own part at the Actors Centre I will
be seeking to connect the development of musical theatre skills
in the acting profession with those who are trying out new ideas
and testing work in progress, just as I already do with contemporary
playwrights, new writing theatres, film-makers and companies which
devise new work. The two-way street of the developmental workshop,
where composers, lyricists, mds and bookwriters share their expertise
with performers, but also learn from performers about the viability
of their next musical concept, is one way I would look to support
venues such as the Bridewell, but they clearly deserve more substantial
resources to pursue their stated objectives and broaden their
horizons.
The Bridewell is an important outlet for the
promotion of new musicals on a more modest scale than the lavish
production outlay demanded by the commercial mainstream will allow.
The future of the genre is potentially fascinating: what new energies
can be brought into theatre by engaging with new evolutions in
popular music, the rich possibilities of world music, internationalism,
reflections of global culture that can transcend the limitations
of text-based theatre, the notion that the musical might lead
the way in the integration of future technological resources .
. . These are all questions that are crucial not just to the tradition
of popular musical theatre but to the whole culture of the performing
arts. They will require artists to make gambles and be daring
if progress is to be made and for the full dynamic potential of
the medium to be realised. Before formats that command widespread
appeal and blockbusting financial clout can evolve, there must
be scope for many more tentative forays and interesting failures.
As a body representing the artistic voice of
the acting profession we wholeheartedly affirm the need for a
review of the criteria applied to the funding of new work to take
account of musical theatre in general and the National Youth Musical
Theatre and the Bridewell in particular.
10 November 2003
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