Introduction
Our story is an anti-AI cautionary tale using the workers strikes during the Industrial Revolution and the unemployment and destruction that followed to warn viewers of machinery replacing human jobs. Predominantly, I was the book writer. However, as the musical began to develop, I also became co-director, co-lyricist and co-composer. This portfolio will explain these roles, the challenges I faced during the evolution of our musical and the financial and realistic decisions we made to help to continue to develop our work in the future.
Creating our musical
Book writer
Being a book writer comes with many challenges: aligning with the creator’s vision, giving opportunities for the music team to contribute songs, and of course, writing a good story. Our first hurdle was securing a cohesive plot. To establish this, myself and our producer/creator worked together for several hours, mapping crucial moments and character arcs to ensure our visions were aligned. Following this meeting, I began writing the first condensed draft of act one.
Our production team had an evaluative meeting with our tutor who provided valuable constructive criticism; subsequently, we decided to change many things: the characters’ personalities, how they met, and their roles within the plot. Consequently, my original draft was now unsuitable for our new narrative. I found this frustrating; I knew this route would benefit our creation, however, I felt I had wasted time and had to start from scratch. Jeffries (2019) states “Don’t worry if your first draft is inconsistent; consistency is what you get in the draft you submit to the theatre. If the first draft is inconsistent, that can actually be productive because it means you have got something to work on.” This gave me a new mindset: the original draft was not useless or pointless, but rather my first draft of a piece of theatre, something I had never done before. Regardless that the plot had changed, being forced to begin again laid the foundation for a second, more refined piece of writing.
On this project, the role of book writer was shared between three team members, a structure with advantages and challenges. This collaboration allowed varying ideas to be brought to the script and routes that would not have been explored if we had an individual writer. However, I became slightly possessive over the characters and how I imagined them. This often resulted in inconsistencies from scene to scene depending on which writer had taken the lead. One example was Frances’ character, a young, naive girl who had stumbled into a pub on a religious mission. I wrote her to be polite, wary and alert; however, when one of my co-writers wrote the following scene, Frances was more contrary and greeted a character she had not met with sarcasm. To resolve this issue, I went through the script and smoothed discrepancies to solidify the overall flow of the piece.
The more I progressed in writing the story, the more invested I became in the finished product. I had a strong sense of where I wanted the music team to write songs to complete the narrative. All of the songs they pitched fit perfectly; however, there was one moment they did not have time to write: the love song I desperately wanted to end of act two.
Song writing and composing
I decided to write the end of act one myself. I wanted our skeleton of act one to be complete, and the structural framework relied on this finale. I have no experience in song writing but wanted to challenge myself. I began by writing every metaphor I could think of linking to our title ‘Woven’ and constructed the lyrics. I improvised a melody and eventually stumbled on the love song that concluded our piece.
Writing a song is as difficult as I had imagined. I did not know where to begin, so I read some of Pericone’s (2018) book ‘Song writing technique’ and decided to use one of his processes, starting with a title. “First coming up with a title that leads to an idea/feeling and concept that you want to express and then quickly writing in prose some of what you want the lyric to encapsulate is an empowering approach to lyric writing. It will furnish you with ideas and some usable phrases but more than anything, it will keep your lyric on track”. This technique informed my process and led to our title song ‘Woven into you’.
https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=ad92d694-d52c-46e9-9537-b43c0157ef50From an internal perspective, it was evident this was the only song not composed by the core writing team. I had concerns this might disrupt the flow. However, when listening in context, it worked in our favour. The song was stylistically contrasting to the rest of the score but reflected the lyrics and story of that moment. In Sondheim’s book Finishing the Hat, he gives his key songwriting rules, one being “content dictates form”. This is a prime example of when the content of the song informed its musical elements, so rather than being a distraction, the contrast allowed the song to illustrate the story shift and character arcs.
Overall, our team collaborated with communication and respect for each other’s roles. The only issue we faced was different individual processes. Our lyricist wanted to work with the music first and the lyrics second, whereas the composer wanted the opposite. Our composer also wanted a full script before making musical decisions, which was not feasible as our plot and script were constantly changing. Compromise became essential. Our lyricist and composer decided to work together to write songs, and I finalised a script overview with gaps where I wanted songs.
The main reason our musical was successful was because we enjoyed and believed in the work we were creating. Boggart (2003) “The saving grace in one’s work is love, trust and a sense of humour—trust in collaborators and the creative act in rehearsal, love for the art and a sense of humour about the impossible task”. The room was full of support, encouragement, and excitement about what we were all putting in.
Research and development (R&D) week
The rehearsal process for act one of Woven the musical was conducted within a strict timeframe of four days. Prior to our R&D week, our script and songs were still being created, tweaked and finalised. Consequently, our cast did not receive their scripts until day one of rehearsals. Our company included three principals and three ensemble members, with the writers of Woven as the remainder of the chorus and doubling as instrumentalists. Our rehearsal time was also hindered by scheduling conflicts, resulting in a compacted preparation period. This meant our plan had to change and we had to work more efficiently. We had hoped to do character workshops and devising exercises; however, we prioritised weaving these into the scene work, allowing discoveries to be made along the way. Having two directors combatted this issue, Josh and I often split into different rooms to work on separate scenes and then piece them together.
One of the central strengths from our creative team was our willingness to adapt to new choices and material changes. Myself and Josh as co-directors encouraged improvising within the script and set no rigid blocking; we asked actors to play in the space and make a new choice each time we ran the scene. This approach resulted in unexpected yet valuable developments that enhanced the reality and truthfulness of the story. For example, the actor playing one of our protagonists, Morris, improvised a line in rehearsal that we integrated into the script. This line, along with his performance, brought a new comedic and light dimension to a character I had originally imagined as serious and stoic; he transformed the relationship between our characters and enriched our script.
Financial process
When creating the initial story and beginning to write the book, I made a conscious effort to keep budget in mind. Originally I had imagined a set similar to this (figure 1). However, when writing the script, I decided to keep our options open with space by rethinking this and making the set more malleable and easy to change. I wrote every scene to be capable of being performed in a black box, with the largest piece of set being a window frame and some planks of wood.
We also decided that instead of having a separate band and group of actors, we would hire actor musicians. Although actor musicians get paid around £100 per week more than non-musician performers, the overall cost works out cheaper than hiring both and, coincidently, helps add to the folky feel of our musical.
Our musical has similarities with pre-existing musicals about workers’ strikes and revolutions, Les Miserables, Billy Elliott, and Newsies. However, because of the subtextual anti-AI cautionary tale, its relevance to today’s society would bring audiences in.
The next phase in developing our musical would involve more R&D weeks within the university, utilising our peers to trial new work and using the free studio facilities on campus. Our aim is to have a full musical script by Leeds Conservatoire’s theatre festival in summer 2027. This festival is a valuable opportunity, offering free rehearsal space, actors, and a public performance in a venue to conclude.
Following this, it would be beneficial to establish contact with Armley Mill Museum. The university already has a professional relationship with this institution; this month, second-year actor-musicians performed a piece on-site. Given that the musical is based on historical events associated with the original mill, it is reasonable to anticipate their support for a collaboration. In addition, I would reach out to Leeds Playhouse, as I am a current staff member, to request the Barbershop studio space for a week, although prices are not available online.
Regardless, we would require funding for the continuation of the project. There are several strategies for funding I would explore.
- Leeds city council offer culture programmes with grants up to £2000 for new pieces of theatre, I would apply to this to cover rehearsal space and instrument hire.
- Crowd funding via platforms such as gofundme. However, this relies on the kindness of strangers and would require lots of outreach.
- The PRS foundation. This has specific brackets of support such as ‘Women Make Music: for women songwriters and composers from all backgrounds’ so there would have to be eligibility research conducted.
In comparison, I think the Leeds City Council grant would be the best route for our project. They prioritise new, unproduced pieces that have yet to receive funding. Furthermore, the musical’s setting and historical link to Leeds strengthens our eligibility by demonstrating regional representation and education. While it is a limited amount of funding, at this stage we need accessible funds to begin our professional journey. This branch of funding is more realistic than national organisations such as the Arts Council, as the pool of work is smaller and less competitive. Nevertheless, I would encourage our producer to try every avenue of funding to guarantee we get the support needed to continue the development of Woven.
Evaluation
Our final performance was very successful; the audience response was positive and they reacted at key moments (figure 2). There were a couple of moments where the pacing appeared slow, diminishing the overall impact. This can be attributed to myself as the writer; I subconsciously wrote a play script as opposed to a musical book. While they share similarities, when listening to the scenes, I realised some should have been condensed and there were missed opportunities for an underscore, a full song, or a reprise. This being said, it worked well for our R&D week as we did not yet have a full song list and the scenes filled gaps in narrative perspective. In the future, I would like to replace some of these with songs and repeat musical phrases to more subtly tell the story.
Through this project, I have developed an understanding of key production principles transferable to professional contexts. It has been beneficial to experience being on the other side of the rehearsal room, taking on a directorial role has given me insight into how to be a more flexible and collaborative performer. The importance of time management has also been a key area of learning. Working under a strict timeframe means there is no room for being passive but instead being proactive and making the most of the time given. The most essential insight I have gained is my ability to do new things. As performers, we are encouraged to make our own work as it can be difficult to secure a job as a new graduate. Before this project, I would have believed I was not capable of doing this, however, I have now learned that I can create good work and hope there will be a future in our musical.
Bibliography
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Equity. (2019). Rates of pay, agreements and working conditions | Equity. [online] Available at: https://www.equity.org.uk/advice-and-support/rates-and-agreements/.
Jeffreys, S. (2020). Playwriting : structure, character, how and what to write. New York: Theatre Communications Group.
Leedscultureprogrammes.org.uk. (2023). Stage 1: Inspire eligibility & guidance | Culture Programmes. [online] Available at: https://leedscultureprogrammes.org.uk/resources/stage-1-inspire-eligibility-guidance.
Ost, T. (2011). Newsies set design.
Sondheim, S. (2010). Finishing the hat : collected lyrics (1954-1981) with attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines and anecdotes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
www.prsformusic.com. (n.d.). The PRS Foundation. [online] Available at: https://www.prsformusic.com/what-we-do/who-we-work-with/the-prs-foundation.
