PROJECT PACK
Below is a little ‘tour’ through all the stories and shows I have written in the last few years. Its in chornological order from the earlier work to most recent…
LITTLE BOBBY MADDISON
My nieces was born after I had had to leave Hastings, I was living and preaching in Ireland and China at the time I made these stories, and I made them as a way of having a connection with them. They’re just super simple, but they have links to me and my siblings. Little Bobby is ginger cos my niece was ginger, the wellies are because I always wore wellies as a kid, and the names are based on my siblings nicknames.
THERESA THE TREE
My niece started saying ‘can’t’, so I wrote a story to try and teach her that most people can if they try. Amazingly, she learnt the little rhyme so quickly and I was amazed at how much the lesson sank in…
MR. MAGLUMP
By this point I had been disfellowshipped and I was holding onto my family by a very fine thread… I started writing a story and didn’t know where it was going…it genuinely kind of wrote itself. It told the story of a man who gets outcast by his neighbours and how one family discover the truth of his past. I then met someone who worked at the Bristol Old Vic and they asked if I had ever written music for theatre, I said no, but I had just written a book for my nieces. They said the Old Vic new writing department was reading script submissions and I had one week to submit something. So I got the file of the book up and then wrote the musical. It got selected as one of five shows to be developed and a year later Andrew Lloyd Webber and my family were sat in the theatre as my life was basically played out on stage in the form of a kids story. Very very surreal…
Here’ s a track from the demo soundtrack I made (doing different voices) and its the best example of how I heard it all in my imagination: - https://brooktate.bandcamp.com/track/chipson-street
You can find the full demo soundtrack here: - https://brooktate.bandcamp.com/album/mr-maglump-the-musical
Here is the webpage with full video with students from The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (my video editing is not great…lololol) : https://www.brooktate.com/mr-maglump
MY GREAT GIRAFFE
Whilst developing Mr Maglump, a story about a girl who finds a giraffe in her garden came into my head and I followed it… I was given a slot in another small new work season at the Bristol Old Vic two months after Mr Maglump was put on and I said I had a whole idea for a show (I had one song and a giraffe) and I had to pull it out my arse. But it turned out more than ok. Hahahaha!
Lockdown happened and I decided to make it into a picture-book-musical…
An early performance of the stage show can be seen here.
BIRTHMARKED
Basically I was in the shower and was like what the hell can I do about what’s happening to my family because of this religion…and I started singing one of my songs (not from my my musicals but ones I played with my band) and I thought ‘ah. I’ll make a juke-box musical of my own music and explain what goes on within the religion… a year later we were on the main stage of the Bristol Old Vic and then we went to Edinburgh Fringe…and things have started happening…
Birthmarked webpage here.
MENAGERIE
While we were in rehearsals for Birthmarked I woke up one night and the story of Debra the Zebra literally fell from mid air and landed in my brain and I was like wow this is a whole parallel universe. Here is a little music video I made for the opening song…
Debra meets the Elephantom - she finds herself exhausted and starts to cry. Her tears land on the bones of an elephant, and the spirit points her attention to the sky and asks her what colour it is. She sees only black and white… https://on.soundcloud.com/nf51b
The elephant then gives her his tusk, and she evenrtualyt ties it to her head…she makes her way toward a mountain and finds herself in a lions cave… Bwyan the Non-Boinawy Lion’s cave… the lion asks her what her name is… https://on.soundcloud.com/Mhtnv
Here’s a video of me performing Bwyan the Lion’s song (but dressed as Debra the Zebra) at a friends big anniversary party last year…
And here is a little mash up video of a big gig thing we did at a classical concert venue in Bristol last Christmas. It was kind of a massive joke and I just parted about with different ideas. Menagerie has become a whole story/show since, and I think its got v strong legs (and wings)…
A here is a ‘full’ version of the show from a semi-improvised perfromance in Canada in 2023…
Thats all for now I think! Thank you for taking the time to look through it all!
PRESS
For Birthmarked:
★★★★ - The Guardian - ‘sincerity, generosity and glorious cheek…bursting with revelation’
★★★★ - The Stage - ‘redefining what musical theatre might be’
★★★★★ - Theatre Weekly
★★★★★ - Plays to See
★★★★★ - Edfest Mag
★★★★★ - Bristol 24/7
All IP belongs to Brook Tate.