Five Questions With: Alexander Bermange

Composer and lyricist ALEXANDER BERMANGE’s award-winning musical I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical is currently running Off-Broadway, directed and choreographed by Eamon Foley and running at New York’s SoHo Playhouse until 28 February.

The musical has enjoyed many international productions and garnered a West End Wilma Award, an EFFTA Award, ten further award nominations, and more than 60 five-star reviews. Recent productions have been staged in Edinburgh and on Cunard’s Queen Anne ship

Other credits include music and songs for theatre productions such as Spitting Image in the West End and at Birmingham Rep, Plague Over England in the West End, and the much-toured Murder On Air; musicals (including The Route to Happiness, Thirteen Days and the multi-award-winning Shadowless) that have been produced in London, around the UK and across the world, spawning numerous cast recordings; one of the Old Vic’s 24 Hour Musicals; and many comic songs for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

Alexander’s songs have been recorded and released by dozens of international musical theatre artists, and he topped iTunes’s comedy album chart with Wit & Whimsy, an album celebrating his comedic work which features 23 popular personalities and West End stars.

Recent months have seen performances of Alexander’s For the Record in London, The Sound of Indifference in New York, Nicosia and London and My So-Called Haunting in Chichester and Leeds.

Here Alexander Bermange continues Musical Theatre Review’s interview series: Five Questions With…

After enjoying success in multiple cities, I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical has reached Off-Broadway. That must be so exciting, how has that process been?

It has been genuinely thrilling. SoHo Playhouse is such an iconic and intimate Off-Broadway venue, and to bring a show there that began life as a relatively small-scale British revue feels rather surreal.

What has been especially gratifying is discovering how little needed to change. The show has played London, Edinburgh, Canada, South Korea, Switzerland, toured the UK and Ireland, and even recently sailed on Cunard’s Queen Anne. Yet the heart of it travels remarkably well. The anxieties of auditions, the indignities of dance calls, the ecstasy of a standing ovation and the agony of a lukewarm review are apparently universal.

There is also something very moving about seeing American audiences recognise their own industry in a piece that was written from a British perspective. The laughter has been big, the warmth even bigger, and that has made the entire journey feel worthwhile.

What do you think it is about the show that resonates with audiences in general, not just with the theatre in crowd?

Although it is rooted in musical theatre, at its core it is about ambition, insecurity, ego, rejection and the longing to be seen. You do not need to know the difference between a ball change and a box step to understand what it feels like to want something desperately and to fear you may never quite get there.

The show charts a performer’s journey from wide-eyed drama school graduate to possible diva, possible has-been or possible never-was. In doing so it becomes a story about the human condition. We have all had awful interviews, humiliating missteps, rivalries, unlikely triumphs and moments when the applause, literal or metaphorical, makes everything seem worthwhile.

I think audiences respond to the honesty. The piece affectionately lifts the lid on backstage backstabbing and stage struck superfans, but it also celebrates the magic that keeps people going back for more.

When writing music and lyrics that parody and celebrate musical theatre, is it tricky to get the balance between roasting the art form but showing affection for it at the same time?

It is a delicate balance, yes, but I think the key is sincerity. I adore musical theatre. One cannot gently send something up unless one understands and loves it. The satire comes from recognition rather than from cynicism.

The show pokes fun at voice-straining high notes, limb-spraining high-kicks and the occasional brattish diva moment, but it also revels in the sheer exhilaration of a perfectly executed 11 o’clock number. The intention is never to mock from a distance. It is to laugh from within.

If audiences sense that the creator is fond of the very thing he is teasing, they relax. They feel invited rather than targeted.

You have worked with many accomplished performers and producers. Do you relish collaborating with different practitioners and has any one experience left a particular impression on you?

Collaboration is one of the great joys of this profession. Hearing one’s material interpreted by extraordinary performers is endlessly illuminating. Artists such as Cynthia Erivo, Ramin Karimloo, Miriam Margolyes and Jak Malone have brought their own intelligence and individuality to my work, often revealing colours and nuances I had not consciously realised were there.

I am also hugely grateful for champions such as Tim Rice, whose generous words about I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical were both humbling and encouraging.

Every collaboration leaves an impression. Theatre is a profoundly communal art form. Even a comic song for the BBC becomes a miniature team effort. I thrive on that sense of shared endeavour.

You have built a varied career spanning stage musicals, radio and comedy. It is so difficult to carve a career as a creator of new work. What has helped you to stay devoted to the art form in such a competitive environment?

I think it comes down to curiosity and resilience. The industry can be unpredictable and occasionally bruising, but it is also endlessly surprising.

Writing for different mediums has helped. My album Wit & Whimsy reaching No. 1 in the iTunes comedy album chart was a reminder that there are many routes to an audience. If one door closes, another may open in a form you did not anticipate.

Above all, I remain devoted because I still feel the same thrill I felt as a young writer hearing a performer sing my words for the first time. As long as that spark is there, it seems sensible to keep following it.

sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/i-wish-my-life-were-like-a-musical