English-language version:
Kurt Gänzl has found
A
MAGICAL MUSICAL …
I’m Kurt Gänzl. For many years, I worked in
London’s West End as an agent and a casting director on shows such as Barnum, 42nd Street, Chess, Singin’ in the Rain. But one of my other functions was to read
musicals. Musicals which were sent in to the office, in the hope that my
employer, the great Harold Fielding, would produce them.
For more than ten years I read. More than
ten years I went to see tryouts of hopeful shows, all round England and as far
afield as San Diego, USA, and in those ten years how many good, unproduced
shows and sketchily staged shows did I find?
None. When I retired, in 1989, the last submitted show the office had
accepted was a little piece called Jesus
Christ Superstar.
I retired to write books, in the South of
France, and my theatre-going shrank. People still sent me shows, libretto and
scores (they still do!) but it was the same thing. Nothing.
In recent years, I have made my main summer
home in Berlin. There, of course, my concert- and theatre-going took on a new
lease of life. Once again, I was mixing with theatrical people, once again I
was reviewing performances and, too late, discovering that there was and is
real talent in today’s world of writing musicals.
I met Paul Graham Brown (remember that
name) by chance. He was attending a meeting about the possibility of composing
a score for a musical based on Deep
Throat, at singing distance from my flat. I chanced by, joined the party and
… four hours later we two drew breath. A fascinating fellow! The next day, he
descended on the Nollendorfstrasse bearing scripts and CDs of produced and
unproduced shows, and I put on my reading hat …
I knew within half an hour that I’d found
it. That thing I’d looked for in England all those years. A musical with
everything … Sitting alone in my flat, opposite the house where Christopher
Isherwood wrote I Am A Camera (Cabaret), I was in tears, as the show, Fairystories, reached its beautiful
denouement. Why was this show not being
produced? Yes, it had won prizes, yes it had been work-shopped in America … but
they did Hello, Dolly instead. Oh,
why wasn’t I still in the business.
Things have moved on since then. Paul
Graham Brown (who is actually an exported Englishman) has become recognised as
one of the outstanding writers of musicals in Germany and Europe. This year, he
will have five different works in production, including the musical of Superheroes, the Anthony McCarten hit
book and film, and the umpteenth restaging of his hilarious King Kong … with a cast of three.
But Fairystories
is coming to New Zealand.
I talked about it, played it to folks,
invited “PGB” to Christchurch, to speak to the students at NASDA … and his
music started to go the rounds, to get heard and known. And one day my facebook
tinkled: Messrs Marshall and McRae, of NASDA and the Court Theatre, would like
to know if they could get the rights to do Fairystories.
Yessssss!
And so, on 23rd March, Christchurch will
get the chance to hear PGB’s magical musical, in a concert performance, and
with a stunning cast headed by New Zealand’s show diva, Ali Harper, and former
San Francisco Jean Valjean, Ravil Atlas.
A week later I head back to Berlin, leaving
New Zealand with my magical musical … while I go, of course, looking for more.
Once a talent scout, always a talent scout!
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