Our CEO Paul Crewes caught up with Tony Award-winning director John Doyle, to talk all all things The Secret Garden – The Musical, which opens at York Theatre Royal on 19 March with previews from 17 March and runs until 04 April.
PAUL CREWES (PC): One of the things that excited me and I wanted to ask you about was the actor-musician approach. Can you tell me about the history and your history with that genre of theatre?
JOHN DOYLE (JD): Well, back in the late 80s, companies in the UK were doing Rock and Roll shows where actor played their own instruments. The Bubble Theatre Company in London was arguably the company where it really all began, with directors like Bob Carlton, Bob Eaton and Glen Walford. But nobody had ever used the actor-musician skills on more legitimate musical theatre pieces.
I was at the Everyman in Liverpool as Artistic Director, having been there for four or five year. I hadn’t done any musicals during that time because, within our tight budgets, it too expensive to do a musical. Anyway, the Board of the theatre started pushing me, so I said, “I’ll do one, but you’re not going to be pleased when you see the bill.”
I said I’d like to do Bernstein’s Candide, which has the most wonderful score, but then thought, “John, you’re out of your mind because you can’t afford the orchestra and the company!” That was very much in the days when Mrs Thatcher was taking money away from the arts and Liverpool got hit badly.
So, I thought maybe I could do Bernstein’s Candide, which is a very playful, storytelling piece, but with actor-musicians. I asked Catherine Jayes if she thought she could orchestrate for ten or twelve actor musicians. I thought if we did a bad job, no one would ever know, it was only going to be on for four weeks, end of story.
We assembled a company of performers, most of whom could play instruments, and we made Candide. Bizarrely it was very successful. The Arts Council saw it and said they’d like the show to go on a national tour. Suddenly this thing that became actor-musicianship was being seen all over the country. It was, the mother of invention, if you like, and I didn’t think that we were doing anything remarkable. It was just playful, fun and imminently theatrical.
PC: After the Everyman you moved to York Theatre Royal, where you were artistic director from 1993- 1997. What can you tell us about your time in York?
JD: My memories of York are all very happy memories, and I’m not just saying that because it’s you sitting here!
The first musical I did at York was Moll Flanders, which is a very sweet, beautiful thing, that I did with actor-musicians including Elizabeth Marsh, who’s in The Secret Garden. It won the TMA UK Theatre Award for Best Production of a Musical and that introduced the notion in a more legitimate way to other theatre companies. I then did a series of actor musician shows at York, that included Pal Joey, Cabaret, and Into The Woods.
PC: The impact of actor-musician productions on the industry was huge, I was at Kneehigh for twelve years and we weren’t doing it in the same way, but it influenced the way people did work. Why do you think it was so successful?
JD: People talk about it reinventing the musical, I don’t like that word, but it helps to reimagine the musical. It helps you to see something differently and, as I said, it’s something that can only be done in the theatre.
20 years after Candide, I did Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd which went to the West End and then Broadway. That was possibly the point at which actor-musicianship changed. If you’re going to play that kind of show, with that incredibly difficult score, then these actors need to be a highly skilled quadruple threat.
PC: What was it that attracted you to The Secret Garden?
JD: Tim Smith, one of your American collaborators, got in touch and asked if The Secret Garden – The Musical would be of interest to me. I listened to the material, thought it’s a beautiful score, beautiful music. The story is hopeful, touching and emotional, and has all the elements that make great theatre, so that interested me.
Then I had the conversation with you Paul, and we’ve met before, and I liked you, and that always matters to me. I usually don’t like going back to somewhere I’ve been, especially when it was somewhere where I was part of the leadership of a company. But it’s an interesting space and city. I look back on my time at York with warmth. I thought this could be the right place. The theatre has a history, in my terms, of doing actor-musician musicals. If the musical is going to be seen through the eyes of the child, Mary Lennox, she would have no trouble seeing a cello going by.
The first major step as the director of an actor-musician production is to find a collaborator in your orchestrator. The person who figures out every note that is going to be played, on each instrument, and who’s going to play it. That person needs to be somebody who understands this working methodology. That’s why I asked Catherine, who’s the same person who did Candide all those years ago. So, it all has fallen into place very nicely.
PC: We are very excited to have you back at York Theatre Royal, how are you feeling about coming back?
JD: It feels full circle, coming back to York, with a show about Yorkshire and as an actor-musician show.
The Secret Garden – The Musical opens at York Theatre Royal on 19 March with previews from 17 March and runs until 04 April.
Find out more information and book your tickets here.
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