There's a new show in the works!

Last week, I was in London for a couple of days, starting rehearsals for How To Be A Romantic. I'm really excited for this one because it's an experiment in form. I'm collaborating with a wonderful opera singer called Valerie Wong, and we have taken some of her best arias (songs) and crafted a narrative around them. The best way I've found to explain it is "a jukebox opera."

We're combining classical songs in their original languages (Italian, French, Chinese) with English spoken text to connect them and explain them. We wanted a story that is relevant to people like us and our times, and so the story revolves around a woman who runs a bookshop and dreams of romance as a powerful force for good in the world.

It's been a really interesting process so far, because opera singers are very rarely asked to deliver spoken text and only a small portion of their training is given over to the craft of acting. However, this year I've been thinking a lot of about instinct. My DYCP mentor Laura has been encouraging me to trust in my instinctive skills as a writer, despite having no formal training, and I have said for a long time that opera singers often have strong acting instincts, otherwise they would have opted for a concert singing career. Working with Valerie to unlock and nurture those instincts is proving really rewarding.

I'm also currently very interested in differences and similarities between directing actors and singers. For example, we have a passage of Shakespeare in this show. When I'm working with actors, I very rarely emphasise the importance of iambic pentameter because I think it can cause some actors to deliver the text in a stilted fashion. Punctuation tends to serve them better. However, iambic pentameter is all about rhythm and musicians understand rhythm in a very different way. Going through the text rhythmically brought out a whole new sense for the singer. It proved the importance of adapting my directing style to suit the performer's strength.

I'm sure you'll hear lots more about the show in this blog, but if this one was enough then get your tickets: https://www.questors.org.uk/event.aspx?id=1448