Memorandum submitted by Mr Ian Albery,
Chief Executive, GSA Conservatoire
ARTS DEVELOPMENT: MUSICAL THEATRE
The GSA Conservatoire has a key role in musical
theatre. Unique in the UK our school has the majority of its BA
Hons degree courses focusing on vocational training for actors
in Musical Theatre. Because new writing for the Musical Theatre,
primarily through US influence, is the most diverse and all embracing
of the dramatic arts we do represent the fusion of all ethnic
communities in creating the actors for the 21st century. The level
of talent and skills developed is prodigious. In the States it
is known as the triple threat performer, one who can sing, dance
and act with equal élan—and thus will beat all other
actors competing at auditions to win the job.
Regrettably because of Arts Council attitudes
to the arts and lack of interest in musical theatre, most new
musical theatre writing is American. Why is this? Because the
Americans consider musical theatre to be an "art form".
In the UK laissez faire dictates that Arts Council funding
for new writing for the musical theatre will be too little and
too late. The West End will increasingly become a port of call
for American musical show imports. Why should this be? Because
intellectual snobbism in the UK decries musical theatre as "the
end of the pier".
At the Arts Council there is at last much more
emphasis on including all ethnic communities in theatre—however
the penny has not yet dropped that musical theatre is the best
medium for stimulating genuinely inclusive arts in our country.
Musical theatre is multi-disciplined and it:
— Extends the skills of the creative
artists, writing and performing
— Broadens the audience base by appealing
on so many levels
— Provides a multicultural accessible
educational route to the Arts.
It is thus perverse that at this time theatres
and organisations like the Bridewell and MMD that specialise in
new musical theatre writing should be so poorly supported by our
arts funding system. For the NYMT to be allowed to disappear without
apparently any support being offered shows a lack of awareness
of the importance of nurturing the roots of musical theatre.
At Sadler's Wells, where I was Chief Executive
for nine years until 2002, we built a new theatre for "dance".
I believe that thanks to Arts Council funding Sadler's Wells has
developed an ethnically diverse and younger audience for dance.
Now at the GSA Conservatoire we are training multicultural and
highly talented students, with DfES scholarship funding, to be
"triple threat" actors. Please ensure that when they
graduate they have the artistic challenge of new UK musical writing
to perform, and not largely imports or revivals—however
brilliant—to recycle.
25 November 2003
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