Musical Theatre Darkroom is an artist development initiative, where musical theatre creatives receive mentoring as they work on musicals they have in development, during an intensive residential week. The initiative has a focus on writers from cultural heritages historically under-represented in musical theatre. Musical Theatre Network partners with China Plate, Birmingham Hippodrome, Royal & Derngate and Mercury Musical Developments to deliver this initiative.
China Plate run a wider Darkroom independent artist development programme, and in 2016 they partnered with Musical Theatre Network to trial a residential week where the Darkroom format would be focused on musical theatre. That initial week paired four independent theatremakers with four musical theatre writers to explore the possibilities of collaborating on new pieces of musical theatre. In 2019 the week of residential development was significantly augmented with the involvement of Fred Carl and Robert Lee from NYU’s Tisch School as mentors, and it was decided the week would focus solely on musical theatre writing teams from global majority heritages. Royal & Derngate hosted the week, and Mercury Musical Developments also came on board as partners. Fred and Robert returned for a further MT Darkroom residency in 2022, with Birmingham Hippodrome also joining the initiative as a partner, and the three musicals developed during the week, again all led by creatives from the global majority, all went on to pitch at the BEAM2023 industry showcase. We are currently planning a further MT Darkroom residential week for summer 2024 – the opportunity to apply will be circulated widely including on our members’ newsletter and on our social media channels.
'On Hostile Ground' presenting at BEAM2021 - having participated in MT Darkroom
