The highly-celebrated annual festival of new musical theatre, MTFestUK 2021, will run from 17-29 May 2021 at London’s Turbine Theatre before embarking on a ‘digital’ tour from 31 May-4 July. The full list of venues and touring dates are as follows:
- The Turbine Theatre, Battersea (17-29 May)
- Norwich Theatre Royal, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry and Birmingham Hippodrome (31 May-6 June)
- Mayflower Theatre, Southampton and the Mercury Theatre, Colchester (Monday 7 June – Sunday 13 June)
- Curve Theatre, Leicester and Dundee Repertory Theatre (14 June-20 June)
- New Wolsey Theatre and Theatre Clwyd (21 June-27 June)
- Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Sheffield Theatres and The Lowry, Salford (28 June-4 July)
Turbine Theatre artistic director Paul Taylor-Mills said: “It goes without saying that the last year has brought immense challenges. At The Turbine Theatre we’ve tried our best to be resilient and to try and use this time to redefine the way we work. This has involved exploring how we can extend our reach and bolster our commitment to developing new work.
“This will be the third time we’ve had to reschedule this year’s MTFestUK. It was important that when we came back, we came back with an even louder bang. With this in mind, I’m so thrilled to share that MTFestUK will be going on a digital tour after its two-week run at The Turbine. Simply put, all eight musicals will be filmed at The Turbine and will then live on digitally at 11 of the UK’s leading regional venues.
“The Digital Tour will be unique in a number of ways and I’m thrilled with the openness and support I’ve received from our fellow theatre makers around the country. Each venue will have bespoke social content that will support the eight musicals. This will include special interviews with writers and actors on the creative process and how musicals are developed or indeed refined.
“It highlights our commitment to ensure that the heartbeat of The Turbine Theatre is heard beyond our Battersea Power Station base. We have a truly international ensemble of actors that reflect the diversity of stories across the festival and we’re looking forward to sharing them with you in the near future.”
The Festival sets out to promote quality artistry, showcasing new musicals to UK audiences with a view to elevating them to full production, and giving audiences an insight into the process of creating new work and the art of collaboration. Paul Taylor-Mills launched the inaugural MTFestUK season at The Other Palace in 2019, followed by a 2020 season in February last year, at The Turbine Theatre.”
The 2021 festival line-up includes an exciting and diverse selection of eight new musicals: Far From Heaven, #50days, The Man In the Ceiling, Millennials, HouseFire, Cake, Daisy and Tony! (The Tony Blair Rock Opera)
Artists involved in this year’s festival include: Tasha Taylor-Johnson, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Jack McManus, Drew McConie, Caroline Kay, Matt White, Thabo Stuck, Scott Frankel and Poppy Burton Morgan. Casting will be announced in due course for all productions.
MTFestUK 2021 Online Musical Productions
Far From Heaven
Book by Richard Greenberg, music by Scott Frankel, lyrics by Michael Korie, directed by Matthew White, musical direction by Alex Parker. Based on the Focus Features/Vulcan Productions motion picture written and directed by Todd Haynes.
Cathy Whitaker seems to be the picture-perfect wife and mother in 1957 suburban Connecticut. But roiling beneath the surface, secret longings and forbidden desires cause her world to unravel, with incendiary consequences.
With a score that is both jazz-inflected and hauntingly lyrical, Far From Heaven is a powerful story of romance, betrayal, and intolerance, as a woman grapples with her identity in a society on the verge of upheaval.
#50Days
Created and written by Thabo Stuck, musical supervisor Amiir Salem, directed by Ajjaz Awad.
#50days is a Grime Musical which tells the story of the period when the very foundations of England were shattered. It is December 1641 and King Charles is about to be formally challenged by a handful of MPs and radical commoners, who share the belief that ALL men are born equal. Many in England, now a Protestant country, are enraged by the notion that the French-born Catholic Queen Henrietta and King Charles are ruling over them.
One of these critics is John Pym, a Member of Parliament and prominent opponent of Kingship, who issues a challenge to the King’s power. In a world ruled by men, who are the women in this story? What are they fighting for? Through propaganda and shrewd political manoeuvring, the nation is about to be plunged head first into a conflict that pitted neighbour against neighbour and shattered the very core of our constitution.
The Main In The Ceiling
Music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, book by Jules Feiffer, directed by Annabel Mutale Reed, musical director by Richard Beadle.
12-year old Jimmy Jibbett would rather be a successful cartoonist than be in seventh grade. His father disapproves. His mother is busy. His uncle tries to understand but is too wrapped up trying to write a love song for his next flop musical. Where can Jimmy turn for inspiration and hope? Maybe The Main In The Ceiling can lead him to his true destiny… If only Jimmy would look up!
A collaboration between Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist and celebrated author, and Tony-nominated composer-lyricist Andrew Lippa, The Main In The Ceiling is an uplifting tale about following your creative passion against all odds.
Millennials
Music, book and lyrics by Elliot Clay, directed by Luke Sheppard, musical director by Katy Richardson.
Millennials turns up the microphone on the lives, the losses and the frustrations of young people in the modern world. A generation that is so often defined by tabloid headlines, tweets and of course, avocados, pick up the mic and transport us inside their extraordinarily ordinary lives. Written and composed by Elliot Clay, this powerful and uplifting collection of songs runs the gamut of modern pop music and sends musical theatre hurtling into the 21st century.
Housefire
An eco rock musical. Book and lyrics/directed by P Burton-Morgan, music by Felix Hagan.
A trio of endangered animals form a rock band to protest against the climate crisis. Leo, the snow leopard lead singer, rages against the annihilation of their world, Ginger the Orangutan, on keys, has her own tale to tell about the traumas of deforestation, while Alan the elephant is keeping time on the drums. But their newly rebranded group ‘HouseFire’ is under threat from their corporate manager getting them to pander to the very capitalist system they want to destabilise. Entering Britain’s Got Talent is a great way to reach more people with their message, but it puts a strain on their already fractious relationships, and is it all just too little too late… Fierce, frenetic and fun – this gig-theatre musical will set your world on fire.
Cake
Music and Lyrics by Jack McManus and Tasha Taylor-Johnson, book and lyric by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, directed by Drew McOnie.
The piece combines rap and RnB with 18th century France to retell a story that sparked a revolution. When Marie Antoinette married King Louis, her reputation was already tarnished by gossip. But when she is implicated in a crime to defraud the crown jewellers of a diamond necklace, it is not just her reputation at stake, but the monarchy and France itself.
(Cake was commissioned by Paul Taylor-Mills whilst he was artistic director of The Other Palace where it appeared under its former title; Killer Queen.)
Daisy
Book, music and lyrics by Caroline Kay, directed by Séimí Campbell, musical director Sarah Travis.
This story explores several forms of loss, challenges the resilience of a family, and celebrates the healing-power of storytelling. After waking from a coma with no memory of life before her accident, a young woman must try to move on knowing little more than her name: Daisy.
Her enduring passion for writing finds her escaping into the world of stories she creates in her notebook, but this coping mechanism still leaves Daisy feeling as though she can only move forward if she regains memories from her past. She never considers that perhaps some of the memories she’s so desperate to unlock might be even more difficult to accept than her new life without them. What begins as a story of personal struggle soon becomes a family’s shared experience of hardship, loss, and love.
Tony! (The Tony Blair Rock Opera)
Book and lyrics by Harry Hill and Steve Brown, music by Steve Brown, director Peter Rowe, musical director Sarah Travis.
A reckless reappraisal of the life of former Bad Rumours front man and Britain’s first pop Prime Minister Tony Blair. The story of how one man went from peace loving, long haired hippy and would-be pop star to warmongering multimillionaire in just a couple of decades. An hilarious tragedy of political intrigue, religion, power and romance that plays fast and loose with the facts, owing as much to Citizen Kane as it does to The Marx Brothers – Karl and Groucho.
Throw in a cast of larger-than-life characters – Cherie Blair, Princess Diana, John Prescott, Peter Mandelson, Alistair Campbell, Osama Bin Laden, George W Bush, Saddam Hussein, Gordon Brown and of course that dodgy dossier.
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