MUSICALS AND VIDEO GAMES

Musicals and video games have similar baggage. Both are often accused of being facile, lowbrow

and simplistic. Both are seemingly codified or evaluated using only a handful of the most shiny and

famous examples. Both are widely misunderstood.

Of course, there are many examples of both video games and musicals that are indeed facile, low-

brow and simplistic. Hollow cash machines designed as nothing more than delivery systems for

endorphins, or shallow nostalgia trips. But dig a little deeper and both forms are capable of so

much more.

If you speak to someone who claims not to like musicals or who doesn’t play video games, they

often respond with the preconceptions that they’re only really capable of a narrow assortment of

storytelling possibilities, tone or functions. I’ve noticed people say things like ‘Musicals are only

good at telling uplifting stories.’ Or perhaps ‘Video games are just mindless and repetitive

violence.’

But ask people who are invested in the forms and they’re ready to tell you how disruptive,

unpredictable and expansive both are capable of being. Games don’t need to be about shooting

things – they can be about mortality, loss and memory;

musicals don’t need to be about sequinned dance-school dropouts – they can also be about illness,

sexuality, politics and family.

It may not come as a surprise that I love both musical theatre and video games. But I love not only

what they have been, but what they are becoming. Both are changing as mediums and are

displaying ever more interesting ways of digging into the biggest and most fascinating questions.
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Both are becoming more adept as art forms and are seemingly more omnivorous in their ability to
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represent and include narratives from a wide range of perspectives, times and tonalities. Both are
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becoming fuelled by a flourishing independent scene that can take risks in a way that the West End
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musical or the triple-A video game studio cannot. Both have disruptive, highly creative, artist-

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driven scenes that are driving immense change, and an accelerating recalibration that outpaces

almost all other art forms being worked on today.

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But video games are certainly ahead in terms of the sheer amount of disruption, the sheer number

of independent games that completely change what the form is visibly capable of. There are now

huge numbers of art games, games that use new art styles and aesthetics, games that tell stories that

are complex and

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morally ambiguous, games that are visually expressive and unique, games that ask questions about
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sexuality
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are five-minute games, three-hour games, forty-hour epic games. Games made by individuals
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scaling all the way up to games made by studios of four hundred. The content has changed because

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c of the main reasons for the increased disruption in video games was a change in the
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distribution model. Instead of requiring shops and supply chains and specific hardware and

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expensive cartridge games, the arrival of app stores and online software downloads meant that

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consumers could download games directly from developers. Publishers, promoters and advertisers

didn’t need to play a part in every game and not every game had to cost the same or achieve the

same benchmarks of scale or scope. So, if a video game could be sold for a few pounds on an App
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Store and could be developed by a single creator in their living room, then that experience didn’t
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have to answer to anyone. It didn’t have to look a certain way or feel a certain way. As a change in
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distribution and commerce came to video games, the medium itself began to melt and change. And

this bubbling up in the

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independent scene began to create new audiences who cared more about innovation and formal

o than seeing the same old shoot-em-ups that felt and looked the same every time. The
disruption

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mainstream studios felt ever more confident that there were audiences for new types of material,

and gradually over the course of a decade, the medium of video games evolved and switched.

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So, it occurs to me that musicals have to do the same. Change the distribution model, change the

types and lengths and styles of musicals available. Empower artists to tell the stories they want to
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without the baggage of a system that has hitherto rewarded and empowered a one-size-fits-all
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approach. A single sense of scale and type for musicals that leads to a type of monotony and

rewards a certain type of show and a certain type of artist.

So how can we change the distribution model? We could start by changing the scale of theatres that

produce musicals. If regional and subsidised studios started housing musicals then the pieces they

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would house would necessarily be a different size and type. But the offer of those spaces and

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platforms would have to come first. Smaller, low-budget opportunities would radically change the

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risk/reward ratio for the musical and would enable artists to do stranger, beautiful,

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more disruptive things. One or two person musicals may be lacking in the scope and scale of bigger
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oa but they can be thematically much more audacious. Similarly, we need to find a way of
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ce past normal distribution models so we can get straight to consumers. Digital theatre,
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livestreaming, cast recordings, Spotify playlists, podcasts, YouTube videos, festivals and concerts

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allr enable low stakes and low-cost ways of getting ideas and songs straight to consumers. They

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allow ways of delivering style and tone and content that is different from the mainstream and the

West End.

I founded a production company to develop artist-driven new musical theatre. This was based on an
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observation that the mainstream musical wasn’t really evolving in the UK. The same long-running,
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big-name shows that had been playing for decades were clogging up West End theatres, and many

ofrthe producers I met were almost always trying to option bestselling books and well-loved films

to try and turn them into musicals.

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Where, I wondered, were the opportunities for today’s generation of UK writers who wanted to

o shows like Chicago, Company, Oklahoma!, Hamilton, Rent, West Side Story, Fun

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Home, Next to Normal  and Dear Evan Hansen?

I wanted to create a space that allowed career musical theatre artists to create work that was

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initiated and driven entirely by them. Work made because of a creative urge to say something about

the world we live in. Work that was based on something that was keeping them up at night.
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The first part of that goal was SIGNAL, a concert series I established that gives artists a space to
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perform new material with a band. This concert series is centred around writers and gives them the
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chance to make work that speaks for them, rather than for what audiences expect. I ask writers to

submit work that lights them on fire creatively and I’m especially interested in work that plays

against traditional notions of what musicals look like, sound like or are about. I kept asking writers

to think about distributing their work and reaching audiences outside of mainstream systems. I kept

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suggesting an App Store mentality where work is cheap and accessible globally. I wondered and

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asked about shorter or smaller experiences that could be cheaper but more audacious.

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For too long people have been able to say they hate musicals or they hate video games because

they don’t see examples of these forms that speak to them. They don’t see narratives and characters
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that they want to see. They haven’t found
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thecr tone or scale or type of work that fits.
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But oi it is no longer possible to say that with video games. There are video games about illness and
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video games about starting a band, there are video games about family trauma and video games
d dancing, there are video games about farming and games about therapy and psychology.
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r are video games of all scales, types, prices and tones. It is now getting to the point where it is

just as hard to say the words ‘I hate video games’, as the words ‘I hate books, I hate movies’. There
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are just too many types to be that dismissive.
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Musicals are beginning that journey of disruption and I believe we should look to video games as a
r of learning. If you empower creators, change the scale, change the price, connect artists and
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audiences directly, disrupt and reframe distribution models, then bold new examples of the form

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begin to be created, and then soon enough the form begins to shift.

oI ask, what does it look like for musicals to be different scales, different prices, artist-led, seen
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s of theatres, and speak directly to consumers? I think it looks a lot more interesting.
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