September 15th, 2023

Mercury Musical Developments, Musical Theatre Network & Octagon Theatre, Bolton are delighted to announce that Dylan Townley will be the next Cameron Mackintosh Resident Musical Theatre Composer on placement at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton commencing in October 2023.  Mercury Musical Develop...

August 22nd, 2023

We are absolutely delighted to announce the finalists for the Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize 2023. Huge congratulations to all the writers finalists and thanks to all those who submitted songs for consideration. The twelve songs were selected by forty judges from 176 song applications. The g...

June 2nd, 2023

Mercury Musical Developments and Stiles + Drewe are delighted to announce the winner of the 2023/2024 MTI Stiles + Drewe Mentorship Award is Maz O’Connor with her new musical The Wife of Michael Cleary.   The MTI Stiles + Drewe Mentorship Award was launched in 2016 by the multi award-win...

May 5th, 2023

The Best New Song is awarded on an annual basis recognising an outstanding song from a new musical written by a member of MMD. Between 2008 and 2020, this was presented in conjunction with the Stephen Sondheim Society’s Student Performer of the Year. Since 2020, we now run the Song Prize as a stan...

April 21st, 2023

Mercury Musical Developments (MMD) and Musical Theatre Network (MTN) have been awarded funding from the Cameron Mackintosh Foundation to support five placements as part of The Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Scheme over 2023-2025.  We are delighted to announce the next placement will be hoste...

December 8th, 2022

Research shows gender imbalance in writers of British musical theatre. Mercury Musical Developments launches new initiatives to support female musical theatre writers.  New research into the gender balance of composers, lyricists and playwrights in UK theatre has found that there remains a larg...

December 8th, 2022

Generously supported by Musical Theatre International (Europe), the Mentorship Award is presented biennially to a writer or writing team who have submitted the first full draft of a new musical. Stiles and Drewe, along with a panel of judges, select the winning project – the writers ...

December 6th, 2022

BEST NEW SONG 2022 WINNER: FLORA LEOfor ‘One Last Request’ from The Most Beautiful SuicidePerformed by Chelsea Halfpenny Flora Leo studied Composition at the Royal Academy of Music and now works as a composer, lyricist, arranger and MD. Her musicals include Show & Tell (All Star Ente...