Festival of Broadway

Well who would have thought that such exciting stuff would happen in Hobart!
Am I allowed to say that?

Have just spent the long weekend at a series of workshops for Musical Theatre Writing conducted by Stephen Schwartz. Yes THE Stephen Schwartz who wrote the hit musicals Godspell, Pippin & Wicked.
Not forgetting his film scores for Disney like Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Prince of Egypt, Enchanted....the list goes on.

A number of musical theatre composers were selected from around Australia to present their work and receive feedback. The workshops were open to the public although it seemed that I was the only member of the public that took them up on their offer. Liz Callaway also presented a workshop on Musical Theatre Performance.

It was an incredible couple of days, receiving great pearls of wisdom from Stephen Schwartz and a panel of other international guests with seriously impressive resumes. I was so inspired by their openness, modesty and genuine interest in encouraging and supporting the development of the writers and composers.

For anyone interested in Musical Theatre I would highly recommend making the trip down to Tas for the next series of workshops in 2011. I really do think that only in Hobart could you attend something like this free of charge.

There is a concert in Sydney on June 20th at Angel place 'An Evening with Stephen Schwartz'. The tickets aren't free and a bit more expensive in Sydney than Hobart(surprise, surprise) but well worth a night out. Liz Callaway and a young singer Adrian Li Donni are definitely worth seeing.

Anyway, here is a link to the website for all the info about Festival of Broadway

And congratulations to Kevin Purcell, head of the Con at University of Tas for instigating it all!

Over and out.
L