Dischord : Figuring Out Musical Theatre

Read Darren's blog about musical theatre here and see the show's Southwark Playhouse page here

Find Adam Lenson Productions' website here and Twitter page here.

Part two of a conversation with Guardian journalist Stuart Heritage and Actor/Writer Alex Young. Following a January 2018 article where Stuart Heritage said he hated musicals, we debate whether you can really hate a whole artform and discuss how speaking to those who disagree with you can teach everyone something new. (Stuart's original article is at bit.ly/2rwRuiV and Alex's twitter thread in response is at bit.ly/2Bo1QRY)

Kicking off series two, this week is the first part of a conversation with Guardian journalist Stuart Heritage and Actor/Writer Alex Young. Following a January 2018 article where Stuart Heritage said he hated musicals, we debate whether you can really hate a whole artform and discuss how speaking to those who disagree with you can teach everyone something new. (Stuart's original article is at http://bit.ly/2rwRuiV and Alex's twitter thread in response is at http://bit.ly/2Bo1QRY)

On this episode we investigate the word cheese, ask some people what it means and wonder about why it is so regularly applied to musical theatre.

This week I talk to director Andy Whyment about resistance, politics, active engagement and labels. Andy is the artistic director of Squint and we met in 2016 when we both won Kevin Spacey Foundation awards. But his was for theatre and mine musical theatre. In this episode we ask what divides our work and what unites it.

We speak to Tony and Grammy award winning composer-lyricist Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening, American Psycho, Whisper House) about putting pop and rock music onstage, the boundary between scenes and songs, seeing the world through headphones and constructing a theatrical reality.

This week I talk about why pop songs and musical theatre songs feel different. I devise a scale of how to describe the informational content of songs and hopefully begin to draw some conclusions about the gap between music and musicals.

We speak to the relentlessly busy british musical theatre writer Dougal Irvine about just how difficult it can be to sustain a career in new musical theatre. We also cover innovation, loving what you do and why giving up isn't an option.

This week I'm trying something new. Instead of an interview, I chat about something that has been on my mind. With the help of some extracts from other podcasts, I suggest that comic books and musicals have a lot in common.

This week I speak to playwright, actor and musical theatre writer Sevan Greene about his unconventional background, working on both sides of the atlantic and how there may not be a formula for writing musicals but there are tiny equations.