In a one-off concert performance on Saturday 6 November, This Is A Love Story, an original musical telling the 200,000-year love story between Earth and Humanity, will be performed and live streamed at Dundee Rep.
This Is a Love Story was commissioned by Vicky Graham Productions and developed with support of Arts Council England and HOME Manchester, then further developed at Dundee Rep Theatre. This REP STUDIOS live stream, scheduled during COP26, will be the first opportunity for audiences to experience the show in a concert setting. This Is a Love Story will be further developed ahead of a premiere in 2022 to be announced.
Telling the 200,000-year love story between Earth and Humanity, this new musical uses the language of pop music to shine a fresh light on our relationship with the planet, with Jack Godfrey’s score and Ellie Coote’s lyrics evoking comparisons to recent stage hits SIX The Musical and Our Ladies.
Performed by two actors, and directed by Miranda Cromwell, with a live on-stage band and continuous creative captioning, the presentation of this work continues Dundee Rep’s commitment to developing and platforming the most exciting and innovative new musical theatre writing.
Co-Creators of the show Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote said “We’re really excited to have our first public showing of THIS IS A LOVE STORY at a theatre which is so passionate about new musical theatre. We are also thrilled to bring the show to both a live streamed and in-person audience as part of the Rep Studios line-up and we’re so excited to see how the audience will respond to the show. This concert version of THIS IS A LOVE STORY will also give us an opportunity to experiment with creative captioning for the first time, which is a massive part of our vision for the show.
“We want THIS IS A LOVE STORY to reach as many people as possible because the issues that the show talks about affect everyone. We hope that the show will get people talking about the planet and our future, and inspire people to think about their role in the world.”
Climate Beacons for COP26 is a Scotland-wide collaborative project between climate change or environmental organisations and arts, heritage or cultural organisations to stimulate long-term public engagement in the lead-up to and following COP26. Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre are thrilled to be part of this new initiative together with V&A Dundee, The James Hutton Institute and Dundee Museum of Transport as one of the seven Climate Beacons for the Tayside area.
Building on Dundee’s reputation as a city of design, the Tayside Beacon will use design-led-thinking as a means to create and deliver innovative forms of public engagement focused on the climate crisis, finding sustainable ways for Tayside communities to take action. New productions like This Is A Love Story with environmental themes are a key part of the picture, providing imaginative ways to stimulate debate, discussion and change.
Please note, this performance uses creative captioning throughout. Captions will be central to the video design and can be seen from anywhere in the auditorium. Viewers of the live stream will benefit from additional open captions integrated into the stream through vision mixing.
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 