Submissions:
Entrants should submit a musical treatment based on EITHER Man and Superman OR The Devil's Disciple. A plot summary of each is given below. The treatment should comprise a synopsis, a scene and no more than three songs, therefore a full creative team (book, music and lyrics) must be in place (this could comprise of one, two, three or more people). The treatment should be based on the definitive text of the chosen play published by Penguin Books. Entrants will be responsible for obtaining a copy of the text (see entry form for details of editions). Submissions must be made by email to Martin Jackson martin@mercurymusicals.com by 1st February 2012.

Judging:
A selection panel of industry professionals will choose from the entries submitted and create a shortlist to go forward to a panel of judges. The winner will be announced next year.


The Plays

MAN AND SUPERMAN
The late Mr Whitefield had appointed staid, respectable solicitor Roebuck Ramsden and brash, wealthy socialist Jack Tanner joint guardians of his daughter Ann. Ramsden cannot abide Tanner's revolutionary views and Tanner knows that they will have no more control over the guileful Ann than 'a couple of mice over a cat', but she persuades them to honour her father's sacred wish. Tanner explains to his friend Octavius ('Tavy'), who loves Ann, that her feeling towards him is the love of the tigress for her prey. All are horrified to learn that Violet, Tavy's sister, is going to have a child, but Tanner congratulates her for following her womanly instincts. Violet is insulted by Tanner's sympathetic admiration and reveals that she is in fact secretly married. Tavy reveals to Tanner that he has proposed to Ann, who has told him he must speak to her guardian. Tanner tells him that that Ann will do what she wants and that if she has marked him down as her own, Tavy is doomed. Tanner jokingly proposes that Ann join him on a car trip to Nice and is taken aback when she accepts. Hector Malone, a pleasant, idealistic American is invited along and the audience learns that he is Violet's secret husband. Straker, Tanner's chauffeur, warns him that he rather than Tavy is Ann's quarry and the alarmed Jack orders Straker to drive off at speed without waiting for the others. In the Sierra Nevada, after a group of brigands intercepts Tanner and Straker, Tanner has a dream, during which he and the other characters of the main play re-enact the legend of Don Juan. After the rest of the party catches up they are joined by Hector's father, in high indignation having learned of his son's interest in Violet. He tells them they will be disinherited if they marry, because their marriage would profit neither of them socially. Hector must either marry beneath or above himself. Hector is forced to admit that he is already Violet's husband and nobly declares they will manage without his father's money, but the practical Violet insists on and obtains an allowance. Ann shatters Tavy's hopes of marriage on the grounds that her mother is determined she should marry Tanner, but Mrs Whitfield tells Tavy she has no say in the matter - this is Ann's way of saying that she, Ann, wants Jack. Tanner assures Mrs Whitefield forcefully that he is not going to marry her daughter, but in a final battle of wits with Ann, at last yields to the inevitable. The play ends with Tanner satirically outlining the plans for their wedding.

THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE
In New Hampshire during the War of Independence pious, disagreeable Mrs Dudgeon learns that her husband has died of shock after his brother's execution by the advancing British forces. The minister, Anthony Anderson calls to comfort her and tells her that her husband has relented towards their black sheep elder son, Richard. Dick Dudgeon is despised by his family and the minister's young and beautiful wife Judith for his wild ways, wickedness and apostasy. To Mrs Dudgeon's fury, when the will is read, the house and the bulk of the estate goes to Dick. Dick declares himself a rebel against the English but warns that when the soldiers arrive it will be one of the more respectable citizens that they may make an example of. Later, Anderson tells Judith that Dick is only trying to frighten them and that Dick himself, as the most notorious character in town, will be the one in danger from the British; he has asked him to their house to warn him. After Dick arrives Anderson is called away, leaving Dick alone with Judith. When the soldiers arrive they arrest Dick mistaking him for Anderson. Judith tries to intervene but Dick refuses her help, telling her to take the opportunity to get her husband to safety. When Anderson returns, he arms himself and gallops away. Judith is appalled that he is not going to save Dick but himself. Visiting Dick in prison, her opinions of him transformed, Judith implores him to let her save him, but Dick brusquely refutes her romantic notions - what he has done he had done not for Anderson nor for love of her, but for his own sake. In court, Dick matches his defiant humour against the cynical wit of General Burgoyne and impresses the British commander with his gentlemanly spirit, but despite this and Judith's revelation of the mistaken identity, he will hang all the same unless Anderson surrenders by noon. After the trial Burgoyne discovers that the support he was expecting is not coming, leaving him so hopelessly outnumbered he must grant safe passage to a rebel officer and negotiate surrender. With the clock striking noon and the noose around Dick's neck, Anderson rides in. He is the rebel officer delegated to discuss the surrender. Burgoyne accepts Anderson's plea that he should set Dick free. The play ends with Anderson and Dick having swapped places: the minister is now the man of action with his future in the militia, while the Devil's Disciple's has become the man of conscience and prepares to take Anderson's place in the pulpit.

Click here to download the rules and conditions

Click here to download the entry form

Royal & Derngate, Northampton

The Resident Composer will write theatre scores for new versions of The Bacchae and Blood Wedding to be produced in Northampton as part of the London2012 Festival to celebrate the Olympics.These scores will include both incidental music and the setting of lyrics. Both productions are being directed by Artistic Director Laurie Sansom. It will suit a composer who can respond to these contemporary versions with a unique style, reflecting the setting, lyrics and contemporary edge of both productions.

The rest of the programme of work will be decided in consultation with the Artistic Director. This might include working with our Youth Theatre, Community Actors group or other participatory projects.

As an ongoing part of the residency, the composer will work on an original musical theatre project, the brief of which will be agreed with the Artistic Director. This will include a week long development workshop at the culmination of the workshop.

Although the composer will not need to live in Northampton, and there will be the possibility of taking work away from Northampton at certain points, the composer will be expected to be at the theatre for regular meetings, rehearsals and production weeks as appropriate.

We welcome applications from composers from a variety of backgrounds working in diverse styles. Whilst some professional composition experience is necessary, this could be in any context. It is expected that the composer will take up the position in early February. Rehearsals for The Bacchae and Blood Wedding begin on the 18th March and both open in mid May.

FINBOROUGH THEATRE

With a capacity of 50, the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre is one of the few off-West End theatres to offer a completely flexible playing space with comfortable yet easily movable seating.

The Finborough Theatre artistic policy is to present:

• New writing from the UK, with a very strong bias towards work on political, social and cultural issues.
• UK premieres of work from overseas, with a slight bias towards plays from the United States, Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and countries from the English-speaking world.
• Ambitious revivals of neglected work written after 1800.
• Music theatre
• Plays about the local area, local history or personalities
• Adaptations of neglected books written after 1800.

We welcome big ambitious plays and encourage plays with large casts. We are particularly looking for "theatrical" plays, not work better suited for film, radio or TV.

Music Theatre at the Finborough Theatre has included the first London revival of Howard Goodall and Melvin Bragg’s The Hired Man, the world premiere of Schwartz It All About which transferred to the Edinburgh Festival and the King’s Head Theatre under its new title, Schwartz Stories, the UK premiere of Darius Milhaud’s opera Medee, and the UK premieres of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair and Me and Juliet.

The Finborough Theatre has championed some of the finest new music theatre composers and lyricists from both the UK and the USA with the world premiere of Charles Miller and Kevin Hammonds’ When Midnight Strikes, Grant Olding’s Three Sides which went on to win many awards at the New York Musical Festival, the UK premieres of Michael John LaChuisa’s Lucky Nurse and Other Short Musical Plays and Little Fish, Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns, Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald’s John and Jen, and the London debut of the 2009 winner of the Fred Ebb Award for Musical Theatre Songwriting, Adam Gwon, with Ordinary Days which starred Julie Atherton and transferred to the West End.

In 2006, the Finborough Theatre began the Celebrating British Music Theatre series with sell-out productions of Leslie Stuart’s Florodora with Rosemary Ashe and Simon Butteriss, Lionel Monckton’s Our Miss Gibbs with Celia Graham, Harold Fraser-Simson’s operetta The Maid of the Mountains with Anita Louise Combe, A "Gilbert and Sullivan" Double Bill featuring Gilbert’s Sweethearts and Sullivan’s opera The Zoo with Donald Maxwell and Myra Sands, Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera The Boatswain’s Mate with Sian Jones, Sandy Wilson’s The Buccaneer, Oscar Asche’s Chu Chin Chow with Alan Cox and Adele Anderson; Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse’s The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd; and Ivor Novello’s Perchance to Dream.

Please visit our website at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk and read the following web pages to get a better idea of the theatre and our work:
http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/history.php
http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/about.php
http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/archive.php

The Finborough Theatre has a varied programme of plays and musicals, some produced in house, complemented by very carefully chosen outside productions. For this reason, the six month placement starting in September 2012 may not be over consecutive months, but may be over a more prolonged period at times that work for both the venue, the productions and the composer.

There will be opportunities to underscore, write incidental music and possibly set text over the course of the placement. . As an ongoing part of the residency, the composer will work on an original music theatre project, the brief of which will be agreed with the Artistic Director. Ideally, funding permitting, this will be produced at the Finborough Theatre as part of the placement. Composers with an interest in the British music theatre repertoire c. 1880-1930 may also have opportunities to write new arrangements for some of our productions, although this will be an optional part of the placement and should not deter composers with no interest in that repertoire applying.