One of the world’s oldest and most loved art forms is about to experience its first ever festival, an international one at that. Musical theatre, long associated with large-scale, long-running productions like ‘Cats’, ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Oliver!’ is set to join the world of festivals. But forget the cliches. Well, almost. Chief Executive of the first International Festival of Musical Theatre in Cardiff, Joanne Benjamin, assures me musical theatre is no longer just about Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals. And she’s going to prove it.
‘My view is that musical theatre is a lot more than just West End musicals,’ Benjamin explains. ‘I wanted to show the breadth of the art form. It’s really important to me that jazz, cabaret, performance art and opera are all part of musical theatre,’ she emphasises.
And what better place to hold the festival than Cardiff in Wales? The Welsh love of all things musical is steeped in history and culture. A recent survey, carried out before the council would agree to host the festival, found a strong musical theatre audience in Cardiff who would support it.
‘Cardiff has the biggest audience for musical theatre per head of the population of any city in the UK,’ Benjamin notes. ‘I think it’s because the Welsh are inherently musical, every single person I’ve met in Cardiff either sings in a choir or performs in amateur theatre!’
The festival idea emerged from BBC Wales, who, following the success of a biannual opera competition over the last 25 years, decided to launch a similar one based on musical theatre and coincide it with a festival.
After researching the concept and discovering no other festival of musical theatre anywhere in the world, it not only opened a huge gap in the market, but offered the opportunity to contribute to Cardiff’s bid for the 2008 European City of Culture.
Benjamin, after almost 25 years of producing West End musicals, setting up two management and consultancy companies, not to mention her appointment by the Gershwin family to produce both the Ira and George Gershwin centenary concerts in 1996 and 1998 respectively, says she was ready for a new challenge.
With only a few days to go before the festival opening, Benjamin sounds calm, while also obviously awe-struck by the response and overwhelmed the work has finally paid off.
‘It’s very stressful, I wish I had another year!’ She exclaims. ‘But it’s very, very exciting. I spent the first year traveling around the world, talking to producers, explaining what the festival was about, getting their ideas and support,’ Benjamin recalls.
‘It’s been tough getting people involved, and then about two months ago we were inundated,’ she says, adding people like composer Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity, City of Angels), contacted her with the idea to stage a concert at the festival, something she still can’t fathom in the first year of an all-new festival.
‘I still can’t believe I’m talking to people like that!’ Benjamin says, a pretty down-to-earth comment from someone who has worked with the likes of Jerry Hall, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French.
But Benjamin is clearly driven by a passion for the art form, expressing her desire to showcase a broad collection of musical theatre and support new talent.
The festival’s main musical, Babes in Arms celebrates the Richard Rodgers Centennial, but Benjamin is equally excited about Ragtime, a Tony award-winning US production making its UK premiere at the festival.
In comparison, the programme includes an eclectic mix of musical theatre from as far afield as Australia. Prague’s Ta Fantastika Theatre will stage their production Joan of Arc, sung in Czech, which has been playing for two years in the capital.
Afrodisiac merges African rhythm and harmonies with contemporary Welsh, while a performance from the Sydney Olympics will be recreated in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium; 5000 Calls is composed of ‘everyday vocalisations’, combining fragments of Vietnamese River Chants and Aboriginal children singing.
But although Benjamin is a traditionalist when it comes to her favourite musical, Sweet Charity, she recognises the importance of supporting new musical theatre writing, and she has a few ideas up her sleeve.
‘The two things I really want to do is to concentrate on the development of new work, but also commission new musical writing,’ Benjamin says.
‘I want to be able to have a development programme between festivals. I hope to get the finances to develop the best of the shows from our competition for new work, the Global Search for New Musicals, to follow through with a full-scale production at the next festival,’ she enthuses.
But her ideas extend beyond the festival to the state of musical theatre in the UK. Benjamin says multi-million pound West End musicals can stifle creativity and don’t offer the opportunity for new writers to experiment on a smaller stage first.
‘I’m trying to get regional theatres interested to try and promote a new way for musicals to be developed in smaller forms. Writers need the opportunity to try things out on an audience, and fail. Otherwise, by the time they get to the West End it’s either a huge success or a disaster,’ she says.
‘I want to make sure that musical theatre is promoted in the way that it should be, that it’s not just a commercial art form, and it is an art form that is very important in the arts in general and audience participation in particular.’
The International Fesival of Musical Theatre in Cardiff, October 14-November 3. For further information visit the website or call the festival hotline, 0870 904 2003
