Deirdre O’Halloran, head of new musical theatre at Birmingham Hippodrome, with Finlay Carroll, new musical theatre coordinator. Photo: Simon Hadley
Birmingham Hippodrome has announced the inaugural scheme from its new musical theatre department: an initiative to develop five shows over a year. The Musical Theatre Writers Group will begin in April, with five teams of writers invited to attend monthly sessions led by writer and dramaturg Victoria Saxton and composer and musical director Tim Sutton. There will also be guest masterclasses.
Each member of the writing teams will receive a bursary of £2,000, along with travel expenses to attend sessions at Birmingham Hippodrome. The five writing teams will have the chance to develop a new musical over the course of 12 months and be invited to share their work with an audience at two points during the year. They will receive ongoing mentorship from the Hippodrome’s new musical theatre department beyond the end of the project.
Deirdre O’Halloran, head of new musical theatre at Birmingham Hippodrome, said:
“We’re really excited to begin developing new musicals for a range of scales and platforms with the launch of our flagship talent development programme. The long-term aim beyond the 12-month course is for us to provide sustained support for musical theatre artists, including commissioning and developing ideas for production. There are so many brilliant musical theatre artists in the UK and we can’t wait to get started.”