Kerry Michael: UK musicals should look to Broadway for lessons on diversity

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Kerry Michael: UK musicals should look to Broadway for lessons on diversity

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When it comes to Musical Theatre, the word on everybody's lips is officially no longer Roxy, but Hamilton. With a record-breaking 16 Tony nominations, Drama Desk awards galore and even a Pulitzer prize under its belt, there is no doubt that Hamilton has hit a rich vein.

Itâ€&#x;s a musical telling a story set in the past but all about the here and now. It has a vibrant contemporary score; with hip-hop and spoken word performed a company of performers, many who are of colour.

This comes as no surprise to us, at Theatre Royal Stratford East. For 15 years we have invested in the development of new musical theatre through our MTI initiative and Musical Theatre Workshops with two associates from the Tisch School in New York. Our aim is to stimulate new voices and seek out new audiences; help write the musicals that would otherwise not be written. From The Infidel to the West End's first Black British musical The Big Life, from the seminal The Harder They Come to the Olivier-award-winning Pied Piper, we understand that musical theatre - all theatre - must constantly find new voices, tap into alternative forms of artistic expression and seek to expand into diverse cultures - to evolve or perish.

Iâ€&#x;ve been asked whether a home grown Hamilton phenomenon could have happened in the UK right now.

Well, when I was recently in New York, as well as Hamilton, playing to full houses was The Color Purple staring our very own Cynthia Erivo, a graduate of our in-house youth theatre, as well as then RADA of course; and next door Eclipsed. Across the way was Shuffle Along. All four shows have people of colour at the centre of their creation and execution. And the whole street was dominated by African Americans going to see those shows. This creates an entirely new theatrical ecology; a virtuous

circle. The more successful these shows are, the more their audiences are seen as regular patrons, producers back shows that cater to their taste, and the industry takes risks in other non-traditional areas.

By contrast, in Britain, culturally adventurous shows like The Infidel or Bend It Like Beckham, are so few and far between on mainstream stages, that the burden of expectation becomes a crushing one. So, the risk is either never taken or taken briefly. The constant obstacle faced by producers seeking backing and space in the West End for such work is: "there isn't an audience for it, is there?". The expectation is that a single show must "bring to the theatre" an entire community. But of course it doesn't work like that. Audiences must be gradually nurtured and developed.

Subsidised producing houses and touring companies have been taking on more and more the mantle of developing such new work and new audiences, as well as exciting organisations like Perfect Pitch and events like BEAM. But the transfer to the mainstream is always more difficult for a show telling stories by those that are culturally unfamiliar to the mainstream.

Everyone accepts that some traditional pieces will be runaway successes and many will be miserable failures. But when it comes to work that either draws from more culturally diverse sources or involves a cast of predominantly people of colour, anything less that sold out houses, becomes a cautionary tale for others not to take risks in this area.

The level of critical review and debate across the UK could improve, too.

The recent cull of theatre critics and the extreme pressure on column inches has created a pincer movement which squeezes out much worthwhile work. So Journalism is getting more and more addicted to only turning its gratitude to consumer friendly „star ledâ€&#x; vehicles.

Both critics and readers coming from a homogenous group - in terms of race, age and class - creates a feedback loop of relative conservatism in terms of taste. But if a show is going to appeal to, say, the British Pakistani community, it needs people from within it to champion it.

Schemes like The Stage's own "search for a new theatre critic" may help with this.

We must also work towards expanding our appreciation of alternative musical styles. In America hip hop is considered an art form in its own right, as is jazz or rap or latino music. In Europe the mainstream appears to be slightly stuck in only considering a musical theatre style descended from opera and operetta. It expands to include other influences with glacially slow speed. There is a snobbery and confusion regarding "new" musical styles. They are seen as a gimmick. Yet hip hop is over 40 years old. Such forms of expression have surely earned their right to be part of our musical vocabulary.

The positive news is that this was not always so, which means it doesn't have to be so. From the 50s to the 80s, musical theatre was much more closely aligned with pop culture. The hit songs of hit shows regularly topped the charts. Consequently, musical theatre had a larger, diverse, general audience. It didn't have to vie for a piece of a very narrow, dedicated musical audience. Would anyone today have taken a risk on a largely unknown Andrew Lloydd Webber, I wonder, bringing to them a show with a religiously contentious subject matter and filled with "newfangled" rock music? That‟s why in our Musical Theatre Summer Workshop we relish working with composers who “don‟t like” like the musical form. “Great, change the form”, we demand back.

The double challenge is to ease expectations of such work a little some will succeed, most will not; this is par for the course - while also overcoming our fear of getting it wrong. Because of a lack of cultural diversity in all aspects of musical theatre, both artistic and business, from producers and directors to musicians and performers, there is a terror of offending someone, of being seen as cultural tourists, or worse, appropriators.

There is only one solution to this conundrum and it is diversity. When I co-directed The Infidel with David Baddiel, we had people in all aspects of the show - business, creative and technical areas - of all faiths and colours. This meant that issues could be thrashed out, mistakes corrected. This makes the work braver, bolder, and by extension, almost always, more impactful. It is not a coincidence that shows like Eclipsed are thriving at a time when visionary black producers like Stephen Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey are central to the Broadway ecosystem.

We urgently need, for instance, an event to celebrate the achievements of diverse artists, to get them in the mainstream press. Awards are,

effectively trade shows. America has a plethora of People of Colour events, forums and awards. I say all this, of course, against an increasing backlash from regressive elements who suggest that multiculturalism is a dirty word and diversity a politically correct burden.

We, in the Arts, have a duty to actively reject this worldview. The exchange of ideas, the mingling of cultures, the creative mixing of styles, is the absolute lifeblood of cultural evolution. Do we really have to continue to have to import from the East Coast of America to feed our Musical Theatre ambitions? Especially at a time when we celebrate our first London Mayor of colour; and as he and the rest of us pound these streets of London, which are as diverse as any in the world. Š Kerry Michael, Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Stratford East. May 2016