Thursday 20 April 2017
Sunday 16 April 2017
What's next in international musical theatre?
This year it will be five years since A Million Miles from Broadway was published. A lot has happened since then.
I began writing that book shortly after the publication of Broadway North: The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre in 2006. When some Australians pointed out to me that “change a few names and it could be our story” it got me thinking about how indigenous musicals could develop in other countries.
It’s been a long haul since then. Broadway North had been put ou...t by a small trade publisher, which mean that I had a professional editor and a sales team. I was able to launch a Canadian tour to promote it. However, Natural Heritage Books (now part of Dundurn Press) were only interested in Canadian books on Canadian topics. While A Million Miles from Broadway has a wider scope and theoretically wider appeal, no government body – who are only interested in their own turf – would back it, and trade and academic presses balked at the idea. (I later told New York critic Peter Filichia, who gave it a rave review, that all the things he loved about it were the things the academic and trade presses wanted me to cut.)
I began writing that book shortly after the publication of Broadway North: The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre in 2006. When some Australians pointed out to me that “change a few names and it could be our story” it got me thinking about how indigenous musicals could develop in other countries.
It’s been a long haul since then. Broadway North had been put ou...t by a small trade publisher, which mean that I had a professional editor and a sales team. I was able to launch a Canadian tour to promote it. However, Natural Heritage Books (now part of Dundurn Press) were only interested in Canadian books on Canadian topics. While A Million Miles from Broadway has a wider scope and theoretically wider appeal, no government body – who are only interested in their own turf – would back it, and trade and academic presses balked at the idea. (I later told New York critic Peter Filichia, who gave it a rave review, that all the things he loved about it were the things the academic and trade presses wanted me to cut.)
This book’s tenth anniversary is still five years away, but it’s got me thinking about either an update or a sequel. Canada has enjoyed great international success with Come from Away, building on what The Drowsy Chaperone (and before that, Anne of Green Gables) achieved. What about Australia? South Africa? Argentina? What has happened in your part of the world since 2012?
I wait with baited breath for your answers, and will use them to decide what form (if any) this next move will take.
I wait with baited breath for your answers, and will use them to decide what form (if any) this next move will take.
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