In the year running up to the show I kept having visions of Charlotte Brontë walking into a stage and plugging a cabled microphone into the ground. Of connecting her voice into the PA. Of rooting herself to the story. That's how the show opens. #WastedWatchParty
In a world of handheld wireless mics, I just had this feeling that the Brontës were too rock and roll for that. They needed cables. They were tethered to their home, to each other. They were plugged in to their stories #WastedWatchParty
It was sometimes HELL to rehearse. Cables are chaotic. They don't do the same thing every time. They won't be tamed. The cables became the fifth Brontë and we named them CABLE MONSTER #WastedWatchParty
I had this notion that they would unplug and replug their mics into different parts of the stage. I told sound designer Mike Thacker we would only need four mics. Then I realised it was easier to move actors than cabled mics so we ended up with 12 #WastedWatchParty
The aesthetic of the production is based on a rock concert. The props are things that would be at a concert, mics, sheet music, flight cases, capos. The script has naturalistic stage directions but notes that "verisimilitude may not always be the best choice" #WastedWatchParty
I agonised about whether we should have a real table. In the end. It felt like imagination was important for the audience. It was all the Brontës had #WastedWatchParty
Gig / documentary. Snapping back and forth between scenes, interviews, songs. A madly ingenious structure that Carl Miller created. Genuinely never seen anything else like it onstage #WastedWatchParty
The toy soldiers are a Capo, a battery, a plectrum and a small plectrum box #WastedWatchParty
Chris Ash kept meaning to write a fourth part for Branwell for the Tiny Magazines quartet but in the end it was much funnier not giving him a line. It shows even as kids that his Sisters are much his superior #WastedWatchParty
"I am currently in the experiencing phase and not the finishing off phase." Branwell is a mood I recognise. #WastedWatchParty
The square central stage is based on the dimensions of the parlour where the Brontës wrote all of their novels. The room they all lived their lives inside #WastedWatchParty
Brontë rhymes with Monty. It is a made up name. A misspelling of Brunty from when their father Patrick went to Cambridge. He thought it looked cool so kept it added the umlaut so people stressed it correctly.
.@mollyblynch loved her cabled mic and cable monster. Even when I suggested cutting the cables to make life easier she begged me not to. The Brontës live in those cables #WastedWatchParty
"The elm does not tell the beech how to grow" good advice from Emily #WastedWatchParty
"We cannot go on holiday to Glasstown. It's imaginary, we invented it" The boundary between fantasy and reality never quite apparent for Emily #WastedWatchParty
I remember the first time @siobhanathwal ran this song I spontaneously burst into tears. I had never seen anything like this song before and after. The spiritual submerging of Emily is a unique and extraordinary theatrical moment #WastedWatchParty
The good thing about not having a table is you also don't need a train #WastedWatchParty
I used to lie on the ground imagining the cables were sand. I collapsed to the ground too often without knee pads and it hurt my knees #method#WastedWatchParty
I am obsessed with confetti. It takes a second to release and ages to clear up. Like lust, or passion, or creativity. I love shows that start clean and end messy, or shows that start messy and end clean. Guess which this is #WastedWatchParty
The drugs Branwell takes are a purple XLR mic cable. He actually plugs it in and sings through it. No fakery here. The cables are life and art. When his is purple it felt like he was veering off course. Amazing @mattjcmorgan#WastedWatchParty
I remember rehearsing this scene where Emily finds out that Charlotte read her poems. The fact of a slow, angry, painful scene like this in a musical just felt impossible. Of tearing up her work while in tears. Reminded me of the violent love of Sarah Kane #WastedWatchParty
Yep so much violent, painful love. I wish there was more of this sort of complexity in musical theatre #WastedWatchParty
It felt special when the cast sang only to each other. When they didn't give a shit about the audience. It was about family and need and art. About the pain of always being kicked and the small slim chance that life would be better if they held on long enough #WastedWatchParty
I loved that we started with a bare stage but as each act of the story progressed I felt the need for more stuff on stage. Perhaps related to the Brontës growing up. Hence the table becomes corporeal in Act and made of flight cases #WastedWatchParty
I always remember David Hockney saying that he painted grass a bright fluorescent green because it was how it felt to look at grass. Rather than how it actually was. I kept thinking how must it feel to write a novel like Jane Eyre and this was it. #WastedWatchParty
All of the paper was sheet music of the score of the show #WastedWatchParty
After they wrote their novels nothing would ever be the same. That was something they could never put back in the box. #WastedWatchParty
I loved how brilliant @mattjcmorgan played Branwell. Arrogant and painfully insecure sometimes in the same sentence. Eager to be on a pedestal but knowingly dwarfed by his sisters' talents #WastedWatchParty
"They say if we publish a large enough number we will be refunded"
I spent a lot of time crawling on the floor of the rehearsal room for this show. It led to some of our best ideas didn't it @natashajbarnes#WastedWatchParty
Two weeks ago I had quite major surgery. Today I got on a bus for the first time since then. With my blue badge. It was very full and I found myself standing initially near the priority seats holding on firmly to the hand rails.
A few stops in someone vacated a priority seat. A nearby mother with two kids ushered her kid toward the available seat. I intercepted and said I had recently had surgery and needed to sit down. I showed my blue badge.
She said her son was on his way to that seat and was on the bus before me. I suggested that this was not the purpose of priority seats which were for people who had difficulty standing.
I just want to say that I am done defending digital theatre. If you can't see the virtue of it or the value of it then fine.
I'm so over people telling me it's boring, it doesn't hold their attention, it's not real theatre.
It has given me and a lot of writers the chance to share their work in situations and times when traditional methods wouldn't have allowed that. It has allowed people all over the world to watch it.
While I'm delighted for everyone who was accepted for the @royalcourt writers group I can't help but feel sad that there will probably never be a subsidised theatre with an open submission writers group for musical theatre writers. Please support musical theatre career artists.
If any UK subsidised theatre wants to start one drop me a line. I promise if we nurtured career musical theatre writers properly we would not only make beautiful art but would also all get really rich. (CF @PublicTheaterNY)
Career progression for musical theatre writers is nearly impossible in the UK. Compare it to all of the systems, awards, writers groups etc for writers of plays.
So back in May I was meant to direct Merrily We Roll Along for the @CSSDLondon MA Musical Theatre students. But of course it got cancelled. This left a year of students having never completed their one big public musical.
It seemed for months that the year would just be cancelled but gradually I became aware that due to the hard work of the course leader Paul Barker the year would be able to come back. However they would only be able to be in groups of six.
This meant that a year of 22 needed to be divided up into groups of 5 and 6 and that they could never rehearse in the same room. Moreover we knew the shows couldn't have an actual audience so would need to be able to be legally filmed.