According to a report in The Stage, playwright Mark Ravenhill is working on a musical, using material developed in workshop sessions with students at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. The show has the working title Mother Clap's Molly House and is based on characters who frquent a 19th century brothel.
Dance Boss Gets LAB Theatre Job
Sian Alexander, executive director of the Siobhan Davies Dance Company, has been appointed Head of Theatre at the London Arts Board. She has spent most of her career in dance companies, but began as a theatre director and development offcier, and was, at one time, assistant manager of the Bush.
Redgraves Sell Family Archives
The family of Sir Michael Redgrave has sold the family archives, which consists of a bundle of diaries, letters, photographs, papers and recordings over 41 metres thick, to the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden for £200,000. According to Corin Redgrave the family was forced to sell the archive because they need the money.
The fuill collecvtion will be opened to the public at the museum after it has been catalogued, which will take two years, but in the meantime there will be a display featuring the Redgraves and a Theatrical Family Trail in May, followed, in September, by study weekends on the rehearsal process based upon Sir Michael's writing.
Hornchurch Theatre Gets LAB Core Funding
The Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch has been given £50,000 in core funding by the London Arts Board, the first time it has received any funding from the Board since 1985. It receives £340,000 from Havering Borough Council but a £60,000 deficit is still expected on next year's budget.
The theatre's artistic director is Bob Carlton, writer of the Olivier Award-winning musical Return to the Forbidden Planet.
Scotland's Cumberbauld Theatre has had its annual grant from North Lanarkshire Council reduced by £30,000 to £100,000, and has been warned by the Scottish Arts Council that there is no chance of extra revenue funding from them, even if it gets into financial difficulties.