Examination of Witnesses (Questions 22-39)
MERCURY MUSICAL
DEVELOPMENTS
14 OCTOBER 2003
Chairman: Thank you very much for coming
in today. Michael, would you like to start?
Q22 Michael Fabricant: You were here
for the earlier session and I was just curious to know whether
you have any observations to make about the environment here in
the United Kingdom compared with that in the United States?
Ms Bexon: Yes, definitely. The
situation in the US is incredibly different from here. What we
have not talked about so far, which seems to me essential to the
whole debate, is the umbrella, the overview from the writer to
the smallest fringe producer feeding new musical work through
to your first platform, which could be an off Broadway or which
could be a studio or a repertory theatre in England or a fringe
theatre through to a medium scale or large scale theatre. In America
the economic situation is historically and fundamentally different,
basically because of the trickle-down nature from their regional
theatres. They sell their tickets by subscription schemes. Individual
tickle sales in a regional theatre across America is a very small
part of their overall income and therefore a very small part of
their overall economic structure. They will sell five or six or
even ten tickets for their whole season so (a) they have the money
in the bank before they open on the first night of their new season
but it also allows them to take far greater risk because they
have already sold something like 70%—I am generalising here—of
their capacity of their theatre before they put on that high risk,
expensive musical. They are not cost centring but they are covering
their costs across the season, which enables every regional theatre
in America to take occasional risks, I am not saying there is
no risk involved, but it minimises the risk. Of course that is
a huge contrast to the situation here where, by and large, every
individual production is cost centred and everyone stands alone
in terms of its profit or loss and that has an effect as it trickles
down the system. The small producer or the independent producer
is feeding work up to that middle structure and further down the
line there is writer training, which does not exist in this country
at all apart from the very small amount that Mercury Musical Developments
does, there is much more development opportunity, ie workshops
in getting musicals over that year 18 month to two year process
from the written page on to something that a producer might recognise
as something that he might want to put on stage. That is the key
reason. There are other reasons in terms of funding, in terms
of audience expectation, in terms of audience history and the
fact that the perception in America is that musical history is
viewed as the American art form. The economic factor is a principal
factor.
Ms Underwood: In New York the
size of the theatre is crucial. There are so many more small-scale
theatres off Broadway the size of the Bridewell, of which we have
so few in London, and that is the perfect venue for developing
new musical theatre work. You do not want to do it in a 1,000
seater venue, you have to do it in a 200 or 300 seater venue and
there are so many more of those off Broadway that there are outlets
for writers to get their work seen, much more than there are in
London.
Q23 Michael Fabricant: I remember
going to see a very avant-garde play just off Broadway in a very
small theatre and being recognised, much to my acute embarrassment.
Do you think that you make sufficient use of regional theatre?
We have a new theatre in my own constituency which has just opened,
it has two spaces, one is about 450 seats and then there is a
small studio which is I think about 100—I may be wrong on
that figure—and that is subsidised by the district council.
Do you think that we are using regional theatre enough? I understand
what you have to say about subsidy and it rings a bell with me
because my background was in broadcasting before I became an MP
and I am familiar with the operation of national public radio
in the US, it seems a very similar system. We have a different
methodology in the United Kingdom of subsidy, but it is an alternative
form of subsidy which is from government and local government
which they do not have in the US. I just wonder whether we are
using that opportunity enough in the regions?
Ms Underwood: We are not using
it enough in the regions. There are a number of regional theatres
which we can name, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Watermill
at Newbury and Plymouth, there are various theatres who are putting
on musicals but we are back to the risk factor again, they do
want to take the risk of spending their budgets on new, untried
work because often it is not hugely commercial, it is difficult
to get your audiences in and they risk having funding taken away
because they seem to have a deficit at the end of the year because
they tried to do new work. I am certain there are theatres who
would love to be putting on more new work but need to feel secure
in order to do so that they are not going to be penalised by doing
so.
Q24 Michael Fabricant: Given that
we do not have quite the ethos of self-help, which is the ethos
in the United States, the form of subscription that you talked
about, do you think that the Arts Council, given their limited
resources, should be doing more, and how?
Ms Underwood: That is probably
something that you should ask the Arts Council.
Ms Bexon: That is a huge issue
with many fragmented parts. Yes, I think they should be doing
more. I would like to come on and talk about how writing is created
and developed, because that is what our organisation does. I speak
to a lot of regional theatre directors and producers and their
answer is they do not have the funding for it because, as we just
said, there is a risk and an expense factor there. As I understand
it there are no specific musical theatres funds available for
any organisation from the smallest organisation, such as Mercury
Musical Developments, which is a writer based organisation, all
the way up through this pyramid. My experience, and I think others'
experience of trying to apply for funds, is that we fall between
too many stools. We are trying to shoe-horn ourselves into other
prescriptive policies for grant making. Looking through some of
these documents for instance, looking out for new musical theatre,
new writing you will see, I do not have time to work out the ratios,
at a guess 80% to 90% for youth projects, for access projects,
for minority projects, I do not doubt all incredibly worthy causes
but everybody else is falling outside that particular focus. I
know that is the case when we are applying for new writing funds
and I see it all of the way through the system. That is a historic
situation and one which has not been addressed so far.
Michael Fabricant: Thank you.
Q25 Mr Bryant: As I understand it
from what you have just said one of the differences between New
York and London is that New York has a network of theatres of
a certain size, you were talking about 200 to 400 seaters.
Ms Underwood: They have a number
of theatres which are defined as off Broadway theatres, which
are 200 to 400 seater venues.
Q26 Mr Bryant: Do we not have quite
a few?
Ms Underwood: We have some but
they are playhouses, they are dedicated playhouses and they are
not necessarily used for musical theatre work. We are back to
where the reputation of the theatre lies. I do not know how big
the Lyric at Hammersmith is but there is the Bush, there is Hammersmith,
Hampstead there are a number of venues, the Almeida but they are
all very much focused on play work.
Ms Bexon: The Soho Theatre does
not have musical theatre in its policy at all. The Almeida has
never done a musical, they have huge space restrictions there
of course but they do opera, the Donmar Warehouse has done a handful
of new musicals but it is high risk in terms of finances. We could
get on to British writers, they have never done a musical by a
new British writer, ever.
Q27 Mr Bryant: Jeanetta Cochrane?
Ms Bexon: Jeanetta Cochrane is
used by fringe producers for small try-outs occasionally. I would
say that is on the lower level.
Q28 Mr Bryant: You were talking about
200 up seaters, the Bridewell has 180 seats. One of the things
that the Arts Council says in its report to us is that one of
the problems with the Bridewell is it is just too small to make
enough money out of seats.
Ms Underwood: That is the problem
that the Bridewell have already highlighted. We come back to the
argument that on the whole you cannot do new work in a huge venue.
The King's Head and Jermyn Street have less seats than the Bridewell
but it is a perfect place to see new work but they are not as
dedicated to musical theatre work as the Bridewell is. You will
see the odd musical at the King' s Head and the Jermyn Street
Theatre but it is not anywhere near the kind of level of work,
and experimental work, that the Bridewell do.
Q29 Mr Bryant: You are saying it
is vital to keep the Bridewell but in addition we have to do other
things if we are going to make sure that new musicals are built
in. We may be rather complacent because we have had so many big
musicals from 20 to 25 years ago now that have done so well and
we think of as having been great successes but actually we cannot
rest on those laurels. Is that right?
Ms Underwood: That is absolutely
right. Also what people tend to be a bit blinkered about is that
you see Mama Mia! and We Will Rock You and you think
the industry is awash with money, because that is what people
see up there in front of them, and that is not the case because
that money is not getting fed back into the grassroots development,
it is going back into the investors' pockets, which is fair enough,
they have put the money in and invested the risk in the first
place but the money is not being reinvested back to find those
writers and those works which are eventually, hopefully, one day
going to replace We Will Rock You and Mama Mia!
Q30 Mr Bryant: However wonderful
Mama Mia! may be it is not new music, is it?
Ms Underwood: It is not a new
musical. You cannot knock it because it is bringing people into
London and into the West End and people are enjoying themselves
but that is just one aspect, we talked about this pyramid, it
is just the very tip of the pyramid.
Q31 Chairman: Can I just ask a factual
question, if you happen to have the information, that is with
regard to the Donmar, which is the only other place in London
that I know of that puts on musicals which are, as it were, big
popular successes and run of the mill. It has different configurations
for different productions, how many seats does it have on average?
Ms Underwood: 254.
Ms Bexon: As a slight postscript
to that I think an important contrast to draw between the Bridewell
and the Jermyn Street or the Bush or the King's Head is that those
theatres are all run principally as receiving venues, which means
they do not have a policy and produce their own work, they rent
out their theatre space, so they have no creative or artistic
control and they are not pursuing any particular aim in terms
of encouraging or developing or providing platform space to new
musicals, which is exactly what the Bridewell does and is exactly
why the Bridewell is unique, it is the only theatre that does
that.
Q32 Chairman: I remember going to
the first night of Les Miserables at the Barbican, which
points out that it also came in via subsidised theatre, and I
remember the set making a dramatic impact of its own and it seemed
to be the first time that a set had become a player in its own
right in such a dramatic way, has that provided real problems
for future musical productions because people expect these enormous
production values and otherwise it is not a musical?
Ms Underwood: It is a re-education
process and this is why the Bridewell is so crucial because you
cannot get a helicopter into the Bridewell.
Q33 Mr Bryant: That was the worst
moment in Miss Saigon, you could see them climbing out
the back!
Ms Underwood: You are absolutely
right, people have got so used to these epic musicals that you
have to re-train audiences that they can have a very good evening
and a very fulfilling evening in the theatre with basically very
little on stage, just a very good set of performers and a very
good quality piece of writing, you do not have to surround it
with all of the paraphernalia that can sometimes come with musicals.
That is why the smaller venues like the Bridewell and the Donmar
are so crucial because it gives the audience a completely different
theatrical experience.
Q34 Mr Bryant: The blocking up of
theatres, when Les Miserables went into the Palace they
took out all the Victorian runnels, it was the last Victorian
stage floor to go, but it is stuck there, is it not, for ever?
Ms Underwood: No, I think you
will find that Les Miserables will eventually move on and
they will put the theatre back and put something else in. It will
not be stuck there for ever but it is a real problem that these
warhorses are in these theatres, great it is making money for
the economy, I do not think we should be knocking it. As I said
before those theatres are made for big shows, you cannot do or
I think it would be a mistake to do something like Anyone Can
Whistle, at the Palace because there are certain shows what
will not work on certain stages. That is why when Cameron Mackintosh
is looking for which theatre to put his next show into he talks
about shopping for a theatre. The musical you are putting on has
to be very much suited to the venue it is going into.
Q35 Mr Bryant: Quite a lot of our
Victorian and Edwardian London theatres are not brilliant because
their sight lines are poor. For instance in the Shaftesbury the
balcony comes down over half the audience.
Ms Underwood: What is in the Shaftesbury
now is Thoroughly Modern Milly, it is a big dance show
and that is the kind of show that would go into the Shaftesbury,
not a small, more intimate musical, which is the kind that the
Bridewell and other theatres are putting on.
Mr Bryant: How dreadful to be all alone
in the world!
Q36 Mr Doran: Looking at your Report
and the conclusion you make the point that there is a lack of
any funding structure. The question I want to ask is, is it only
about funds, is it only about subsidy?
Ms Bexon: From Mercury Musical
Developments viewpoint it is pretty much because we do work right
at the grassroots because we work with writers. We have over 100
writers and our absolute conviction is there is no shortage of
writing talent in Britain. What we are particularly preoccupied
and exercised by is the fact that so little British product goes
on in musical theatre stages across the country, from the smallest
producer right up to the National Theatre. As Mr Kaufman so rightly
said the National Theatre, I think I am right in saying, has only
done two musicals by British writers. They have done very few
new musicals of course but they have done many revivals. They
did a musical by two of our writers Honk, which won the
Olivier award two or three years ago and I think that slotted
into the schedule at the very last minute because something else
cancelled and because the budget shrunk and it was a small-scale
show and they did Jerry Springer, which was hardly a risk
exercise for them because it had been on at the BAC and in Edinburgh
and I know three commercial producers that were negotiating to
try and get it into a commercial house and it ended up at the
National Theatre. Those were both high quality works and it was
marvellous that they achieved an audience but if the National
Theatre is not setting an example by encouraging British writers
it is hardly surprising that the repertory theatres and the smaller
theatres in London, off West End theatres and smaller fringe theatres
are doing the same thing. There is a sore lack of opportunity
for British writers, again in huge contrast to what happens in
the States. As Bridewell said in their report they do a good percentage
ratio of new musicals but it is principally American writers.
In the States there is a new generation of musical theatre writers
in Adam Guettel, Jason Robert Brown, Michael John LaChiusa, Lynn
Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, there are no names we can mention
in there apart from George Stiles and Anthony Drewe who have had
a modicum of success, highly talented writers. We can name you
98 others who do not get an opportunity. There is no training
and there is no development and all of that is down to funding.
There is no structure because there is no funding.
Q37 Mr Doran: Just getting back to
my original question, is it just about funding, if the money were
available would it work? How would it work? What structures would
you put in place to make it work?
Ms Bexon: I believe so, From the
writing upwards we are the only organisation in the country that
provides writers with training and we do very little of that because
of our small budgets. There should be training, there should be
development opportunities which can actually be quite low cost,
it can be one-off workshops, it can be mentoring by other writers
or producers or directors, it is lengthy but it does not have
to be a high cost exercise. I know of theatre owners and theatre
managers who have very small spaces that would provide a first
platform, the off West End theatres, the studio spaces in the
regional theatres, if there was funding diverted into there that
would be the first outing for a small musical. Obviously funding
is needed at the regional theatre level to minimise the risk for
them to produce new musicals. The final structure of that pyramid
is the West End and the commercial theatre which does not need
funding, the top ends exists, it is all of the structure in the
pyramid below it—
Ms Underwood: As Georgina said
you need very little money to be able to get a show looked at.
The thing we get from the writers that we are dealing with all
the time is they say to us, "this is great, you provide us
with salons, we get to meet people, we network with each other
but what we really want at the end of the day is to see if the
show works on stage". With £500 to £1,000 you can
put on a showcase or a workshop in somewhere like the Bridewell
or another venue, because the other thing that the Bridewell do
apart from their work open to the public is they provide a venue
and a space for work to be looked at by people in the industry
before it gets to the production stage. That developmental process
which is also what is seriously lacking and which is another reason
why we have so little British work in the West End because it
needs to go through that evolution is actually quite a cheap thing
to do but you still need that pot of money to be able to help
a writer to put on that first showcase and that first workshop
and get him or her involved with a team of people who can then
advise them, work with them and help them restructure, recreate,
add, take out and build that piece of work into something which
can then start to become attractive to a commercial producer.
Q38 Mr Doran: One of the difficulties
I have in the way you are presenting it and the way that the Bridewell
and everyone else who has given us evidence is that everything
concentrates on subsidy and I understand that is necessary when
you are talking about risk-taking in the sort of theatre you are
talking about, but it seems to me no matter what you do, no matter
what structures we put in the place the public's perception will
always be that musical is a place where lots of people make money,
it is the big commercial operations and no matter how much support
the Bridewell has it will still be limited in the number of people
who have access to what it produces. From my own point of view
some of the best theatrical experiences I have had have been at
the Edinburgh Festival, where lots of the people go through the
hands of the Bridewell, but they will perform on the fringe and
it is still a limited audience. Nobody has said anything to us
about widening the audience by putting pressures on the television
companies. I cannot remember the last time there was a musical
on televison which was not a Hollywood film. It seems to me that
everyone is in a box and is not looking outside the box.
Ms Bexon: We are doing a showcase
of five new musicals at the Arts Theatre next week and we have
television and film producers coming along, we have made a special
PR marketing initiative to get them along. I suspect this is a
very, long, weary road to travel. There are mindsets and historical
situations and it will be an education process, I think you are
entirely right.
Ms Underwood: I would agree. I
hope we will get to the position where you are starting to see
musical theatre work on television, it happens in the States,
they are now doing and recording television versions of Annie,
classic musicals, which are then broadcast on the American networks.
We are not in that position yet and we have to persuade the television
companies it is worth investing that kind of money, that it is
not going to be a one-off showing on BBC 1, that they will be
able to sell that product round the world, because otherwise it
is not worth their investment. It is going to be a long haul.
I think we are now at the time we can start to do that with the
success of film musicals coming back in thanks to Chicago
and the ones which are in production now I think television and
film people are beginning to open their eyes to those possibilities,
but I think we are at the very beginning of that. It is going
to take quite a long time and quite a lot of lobbying on the part
of the theatre industry to start bringing them round. One of the
producers in the Jerry Springer is Avalon, which is a television
production company, it is there and it does happen. Tiger Aspect
invested in Our House, it is creeping in but it is going
to take a while.
Q39 John Thurso: Before I ask the
question I want to ask can I follow up on the point that Frank
Doran made, you said that the top end exists happily, and one
might say even fairly lucratively, and the problems therefore
are at the beginning and in the middle, could the top end not
do more to assist the bottom or the middle, is there something
that should be looked at?
Ms Bexon: I have to say they could
do far more. Mercury Musical Developments only exist and it has
only achieved what it has in the last 12 years because of support
from the top end. Our sponsors and supporters have included every
major theatre producer in the West End I think at various times
but I have to say with extremely modest amounts but they do see
and recognise the need for support of our organisation and other
similar organisations. It is absolute a drop in the ocean even
though our budgets are small and our needs are very small. I come
back to the fact that we are harking on about funding, the sort
of funding levels we are talking about for our organisation are
very small and I would compare the musical theatre situation to
the funding available for new drama. We work on them the whole
time.
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