3 days ago
We have the talent - so why not an Irish musical theatre scene?
London has the West End. New York has Broadway. Ireland has… Well, we have a well-established and respected theatre scene, of course. Still, imagine a theatre district dedicated to musical theatre - where we welcome the odd touring production, but primarily stage our own homegrown shows featuring local actors, lighting designers, set designers et al?
The so-called green wave has been discussed extensively in recent years and our bands, musicians, artists, actors and writers are undoubtedly doing great things 'out foreign'. Yet for some reason, the 'musical theatre' branch of the performing arts is often an afterthought in Ireland. There are a number of brilliant stage schools around the country that cater for kids and young adults, and which often set them up for stellar careers in the industry. Yet when they get to a certain age, they're essentially forced to leave Ireland to train in the UK.
Listen: Sarah O'Connor talks to Marty In The Morning
Is it because musicals are often perceived by some as the frivolous little sibling to 'serious' or straight theatre? I've interviewed several of our most successful musical theatre stars in recent years. One of them, the brilliant Sarah O'Connor, played Glinda in a recent touring production of Wicked, spoke about the necessity of leaving Dublin after her Leaving Cert to pursue her dream at a Performing Arts school in Romford, Essex - a "scary" proposition to leave home so young. Another, Kildare native Sharon Sexton - who originated the role of Sloane in the acclaimed Meat Loaf musical Bat Out of Hell and has forged an incredible career for herself - said that after outgrowing Naas Musical Society as a kid, there was no other option but to leave for London.
"There were no musical theatre courses in Ireland when it came to me leaving school, but there was a drama course in DIT," she said of the concession that she made at the time. "So I kind of persuaded my folks to let me study there, because you got a qualification as a teacher. I did that for three years, and after that, just kind of tried to find work in Ireland - if there was any musical going, I was in there. But y'know yourself, there's no real musical theatre industry, as such, in Ireland. You've got the pantos at Christmas - which I did, or the odd musical in the National Concert Hall - which I did. And I, Keano, which was billed as 'Ireland's Biggest Musical' - and which I did."
We have the talent in abundance - and we should be doing everything to foster this and build upon it, rather than exporting our talent to the UK like teenage footballers being snapped up by Premier League clubs.
It's not just musical theatre, either; performing arts are lacking in funding and framework on a wider scale to train and support budding artists who want to pursue it as a career at home. Dublin ballet dancer Stephen Murray, who recently wowed audiences in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, revealed the circuitous route he was forced to take to pursue his dream in ballet - from the Westside Stage School in Lucan as a kid, to the College of Dance in Monkstown, and finally to London's Central School of Ballet when he was just 16. It has undoubtedly worked out well for him - but wouldn't it have been better for him to train at an elite level in his hometown?
The main problem, of course, is that there is simply not enough work in Ireland to sustain everyone who wants to work in musical theatre full-time. There aren't enough homegrown shows, outside of panto season and the odd outlier like I, Keano, to keep performers in employment for twelve months of the year. While it's unrealistic to imagine that we could ever rival the West End or Broadway, it's also something that will never change if we're not prepared to fund the sector and invest in building an Irish homegrown musical theatre scene. It would be nice to see more Irish-made productions, to start with. Why not?
Listen: The Ray D'Arcy Show talks to the cast of Little Shop Of Horrors
On that note, the production o f Little Shop of Horrors currently running at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre is a huge step in the right direction. Since opening its doors in 2010, the theatre in the heart of Dublin's docklands has hosted some of the biggest musical productions of all time, from Wicked to Hamilton and The Lion King to The Book of Mormon. Little Shop of Horrors, however, is an absolutely stellar show; from the set design, to the puppetry and the excellent performances across the board, there is no sense of cutting corners. Taking on Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's camp classic is no mean feat, but this show emphatically proves that it can be done to a high standard. It also proves that we have the talent in abundance - and we should be doing everything to foster this and build upon it, rather than exporting our talent to the UK like teenage footballers being snapped up by Premier League clubs.
Most people would agree that theatre - and particularly independent Irish theatre - could do with a lot more funding. Actor Aaron Monaghan, most recently seen in The Cave at Dublin's Abbey Theatre, spoke passionately about how difficult it has become to get funding for his own independent company, the Cavan-based Livin' Dred, which has done great work including a recent production of Playboy of the Western World, which he directed.
"I think everything comes back to the crash and the decisions that were made about the cuts; everything," he said when I spoke to him earlier this year. "I say this in a very well-meaning way - because I think the decisions that were made were well-intentioned - but there was too much being spent on infrastructure, on the administration side of things. And they could have been better streamlined, but what they ended up doing was cutting companies. So as well as cutting the architecture and the infrastructure out of the industry, we lost a huge amount of administrative and producing experience. And we also cut a huge amount of companies - which meant a lot of artists were gone, a lot of companies gone, a lot of audiences gone. There had been huge diversity of work: you had Barabbas who were doing clown stuff, Performance Corporation were doing their stuff, Second Age were providing things for schools. So if suddenly they're all gone overnight, it's huge. And I don't think we've recovered from that."
If the 'green wave' is really more than just a soundbite for American media around Oscars season, it needs to encompass every aspect of Irish arts - and musical theatre shouldn't be left behind.
