An evening of new British musical theatre will be unveiled at the inaugural The S&S Award, the prize presented to the best, yet to be produced musical of the year, with West End stars performing material from the winning and highly commended musicals at the St James Theatre, London on Sunday 24 November.
The winner of this year’s coveted The S&S Award is the new work Forest Boy by recent graduates of the prestigious Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Claire McKenzie and Scott Gilmour. The piece is based on a true story that captured the whole world in September 2011 when a boy appeared in Berlin claiming to have lived in the forest with his father for the past five years. Forest Boy is ‘a tale of lies, growing up and, above all, imagination…’
The S&S Award is designed to help a new writing team in the most practical way possible, by giving the winners the unique opportunity to work with a mentor to further develop their musical over the coming year. The prize is the brainchild of renowned stage book writer and lyricist Warner Brown who has created this special award in memory of his parents, the hoteliers Sidney and Sylvia (S&S) Brown, both lovers of musical theatre. The award, facilitated by Mercury Musical Developments (MMD), celebrates and honours new unproduced musicals and is judged by a panel of industry luminaries.
Warner Brown (Walking With Dinosaurs – The Arena Spectacular, Garbo – The Musical, The Biograph Girl) says: “It’s all about new work. Boy, does new work need to be encouraged! When I first started out, my mentor was David Heneker, composer/lyricist of Half a Sixpence and Irma La Douce – there isn’t a day when I’m not reminded of the things he taught me and the leg up he gave me. The S&S Award is there as a memorial of the past and an encouragement for the future.”
The winning show Forest Boy will be performed by recent graduates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. A West End cast will perform songs from the musicals that were highly commended by The S&S Award judges. The evening will employ the talents of Olivier Award-winner Leigh Zimmerman (A Chorus Line/The Producers), Caroline Sheen (Mary Poppins/The Light in the Piazza), David Bedella (Jerry Springer the Opera/Torch Song Trilogy), Hannah Jane Fox (We Will Rock You), Danielle Hope (Les Miserables/The Wizard of Oz), Nigel Richards (Floyd Collins, Napoleon, Spend Spend Spend), singer/songwriter Gwyneth Herbert (composer of the upcoming A-Z of Mrs P) – and West End veteran Elizabeth Seal who won a Tony for the Broadway transfer of Irma La Douce in 1961. The evening will be directed by Michael Strassen.
The highly commended shows are: The Stationmaster by Tim Connor and Susannah Pearse; Counselling Mr Toad by Andrew Brinded; Possessed by Teresa Howard and Stephen Edis; The Attic by Mark Carroll – and as the standard was so high two runners-up have also been included: The Queen of Snow by Jenifer Toksvig and Alexander Rudd and Between Empires by Morgan Mackintosh, Orlando Simon and Michail Palaiologou.
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