"Offers great presenting opportunities for a generation of up-and-coming composers and lyricists."
KENNY WAX producer
"I can thoroughly recommend BML's workshops. Sign up and watch your work get better fast."
GEORGE STILES composer
Librettist
This workshop is made up of both new and experienced librettists.
New participants begin by focusing on the building blocks for strong story development, character development and audience engagement through the dissection of ‘classic’ musical theatre books. There are several assignments to practise the basic tenets of the craft. Twice during the first year, librettists work on collaborations with the first year composers and lyricists, including the creation of a 10-minute musical.
After the first year, members are encouraged to initiate and develop their own projects, always beginning with a one-page pitch. The project is then developed in stages through treatments, an outline, and on to a full script.
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Workshop faciltator
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DAVID JAMES
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David has worked in the professional theatre in New York, Los Angeles and London for 50 years. For many years a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, his award-winning plays have been produced by the BBC World Services, Radio Four, and the South African Broadcasting Company. Modern Olympia had a reading at Manhattan Theatre Company.
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He was Assistant Costume Designer on many Broadway musicals including Promises Promises, the original production of Grease, 70 Girls 70, Bob Fosse's Dancin', The Rothschilds and other productions on Broadway, at Lincoln Centre, and at the Metropolitan Opera. He has designed costumes for over thirty productions in New York, including Vanities, which ran off Broadway for seven years, as well as productions for Playwrights Horizons and the Lion Theatre, and dance companies including the Joffrey Ballet and Alvin Ailey. He has styled over 600 TV adverts.
He has sat on the boards of United Scenic Artists local 829, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (where he was chair of the Theatre Committee for 11 years), and Mercury Musical Developments.
He has been a judge for the Tony Awards, the CLIO Awards, the London New Play Festival, The Writers' Guild Awards, and the John Whiting Award.
Recently, he has begun performing, appearing with Liz Carr in Assisted Suicide - the Musical at the Royal Festival Hall, in Glasgow and Liverpool, and at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. He also appears in Duckie at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. He is a member of British Equity.
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David founded BML in 2010.
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