ADAM LENSON'S ORCHARD

Lately I've been thinking alot about my friend and collaborator Adam Lenson. For the last 17 years Adam has been ploughing the hard, arid land, planting seeds, providing nutrients for the soil slowly making the ground fertile.

But Adam is not a farmer.

He is a director, a producer, a creator, tireless advocate for new British musical theatre. He's not the only one who has been doing this, but he's certainly the one who seems to have been shouting the loudest for the longest. 

Conversations with Adam inspired me to be part of a solution. A solution to a question that 15 years ago seemed so nebulous, so vast and so impossible to solve that even the attempt felt like folly...

Why are there so few new musicals by UK musical theatre writers being produced by in the UK? And how can we change that?

17 years ago I wrote my first amateur musical with friends at Putney Arts Theatre Company. Little did I know the path that this experience would set me on. Years later, after throwing myself into the fledgling world of new musicals, I met Adam. I wouldn't have described myself back then as a passionate advocate. I hate upsetting people and I have an almost pathological need to be liked by everyone I meet. But by the time I met Adam, I had been trying to break through (by which I mean make a reasonable living) as a musical theatre maker for 9 years. I was tired but I was also fed up. And that's when the fires started to burn...

Adam's fire had already been burning for a good long while when I met him, but the thing about fires is that they have a tendency to spread. So I started going to events and talks and concerts that Adam was organising...

Adam set up forums, working groups, conversations and concerts where we began to talk about how we could change things. How could we help make this country better at producing new musical theatre. Bear in mind that these groups were made up almost entirely of people who had no real "power" to speak of. We were freelancers, writers, creatives, performers and we came together to try and understand why the doors we had been pounding on for so long remained closed to us. Because it was only in understanding WHY a door is closed that we could learn HOW to open it.

We did not have venues, we were not artistic directors of large theatres, we did not have money but we talked and we learned and we figured out what we were able to do that might ultimately make a difference. We could do what the organisations with the money and the power were not doing. We could support each other, we could encourage each other as we ploughed the stone filled fields in the depths of the icy winter. 

Okay, a little dramatic, but ask any of us musical theatre creators who have been trying to break through for at least 16 years what it felt like (and still does) and I would imagine that isn't too far from the mark. In fact I know it isn't, because many of those creators have become my friends and stout-hearted colleagues.

But the key thing that was really going to help us all, was that whilst supporting each other we had to keep WRITING.

We had to keep getting better at our CRAFT. Because once those doors were opened we had to be READY for what lay on the other side. So what did Adam do, he created SIGNAL where writers could present their craft. An incredible concert series that gave writers the opportunity to hear their material sung by amazing performers and performed by a world class band. And it was all FREE!

Adam created this. I don't know how many shows, collaborations, songs, partnerships, productions began purely because of this incredible act of generosity from a man who refused to let the world he was in dictate the world he wanted to create. But believe me... It's ALOT.

Essentially, along with other tireless producers, BML, MMD and MTN, Adam's work and his concert series have led to the fertilisation of the new musical theatre landscape in this country. There is now a fledgling orchard offering the beginnings of shade and fruit to a younger generation. 

The main thing that I'd like to say is that often this immeasurable contribution passes unnoticed and goes without thanks. We all need to keep planting and growing that orchard, we need to keep supporting the farmers like Adam who with limited resources are nurturing it. And when we get to climb the ladder to harvest the ripest fruit... we cannot pull the ladder up behind us. So if you end up with a platform for a big show with a big marketing budget, please don't forget to use your platform (as much as you are able) not just for yourself and your show but for the industry as a whole. 

Please thank people like Adam and all those who have been fertilising that soil, because years ago they saw an arid, stone-filled field and decided to change it into a beautiful orchard. We sit in the shade of their labour, we eat the ripening fruits of their hard work.

​It's time to give them something back.