Welcome to Represent, the queer musical theatre podcast. My name is Dr James Lovelock, and I’m an academic and a huge musical theatre fan exploring the representation of all things queer in the musical theatre industry.

My guests today are the extraordinary writer Chris Bush and the fabulous actor and workshop queen Beth Hinton-Lever. Beth recently appeared in Chris’ play Otherland at the Almeida Theatre, which follows the post break-up relationship between Harry, who has recently come out as a trans woman, and Jo, who is preparing to be a mother. We talk about trans, queer and disability representation as well as exploring Chris’ beautiful musical Standing At The Sky’s Edge, Beth’s West End debut in Hadestown and an epic community musical called The Doncastrian Chalk Circle.

Links

Chris Bush's instagram

Beth Hinton-Lever's instagram

James Lovelock's instagram

Standing at the Sky's Edge website

Buy the Standing at the Sky's Edge script from Nick Hern Books

'As the Dawn Breaks' and 'Tonight the Streets Are Ours' from Standing At The Sky's Edge (press preview)

Listen to the Standing at the Sky's Edge soundtrack on Spotify or Apple Music

Otherland website

Buy the Otherland script from Nick Hern Books

The Doncastrian Chalk Circle website

Other new LGBTQ+ theatre / musical theatre discussed in this episode

After the Act website

Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2018 production of Oklahoma! - website

One of Them Ones website

One of Them Ones script

In this week's episode from Podstream Studios in New York, Dr James Lovelock talks to actors Evan Kinnane and Ben Jackson Walker about LGBTQ+ representation on Broadway and beyond. We talk about Evan's role as Marc Hall in the 2020 production of The Louder We Get at Theatre Calgary in Canada, and about Ben's current role as Romeo in & Juliet as well as our hopes and dreams for queer musical theatre in the future.

Follow Evan on Instagram here.

Follow Ben on Instagram here.

Follow James on Instagram here.

'This Dance Is For You' from The Louder We Get

www.queermusicals.com

This episode was recorded at Podstream Studio in New York and engineered by Desta Wondirad (thanks Desta!)

In this episode, Dr James Lovelock is joined by Oliver Houser, the writer of XY and She Reached For Heaven. We talk about intersex representation in musical theatre, and the writing and development process of XY as a queer musical.

Oliver's website is here and you can follow him on Instagram here.

You can follow James on instagram here.

www.queermusicals.com

This episode was recorded at Podstream Studio in New York and engineered by Desta Wondirad (thanks Desta!)

This week's episode comes from New York's Podstream Studios, where James Lovelock chats with the amazing L Morgan Lee about her recent performance as Nina-Mae in A Complicated Woman at Goodspeed Musicals and her involvement in workshopping the new musical version of The Danish Girl.

You can find out more about L Morgan on her website and her instagram page.

James Lovelock's instagram page is here.

www.queermusicals.com

This episode was recorded at Podstream Studio in New York and engineered by Desta Wondirad (thanks Desta!)

In this episode, Dr James Lovelock chats to Jessica Aubrey and Joshua Clemetson from Wicked about their experiences as queer people in the musical theatre industry. We discuss Jessica's work on But I'm A Cheerleader and Joshua's ambition to be the first octagenerian Lola in Kinky Boots.

TW: Conversion therapy

You can follow Jessica on Instagram here.

You can follow Joshua on Instagram here.

You can follow James on Instagram here.

www.queermusicals.com

This episode was funded by the University of Wolverhampton.

In today's episode, Dr James Lovelock talks to Elizabeth Ayodele (Standing At The Sky's Edge) and Madeline Charlemagne (Hadestown) about the representation of black, working class women in musical theatre and the importance of diverse education in drama schools.

You can follow Elizabeth on Instagram here and Madeline on Instagram here.

Find out more about Open Door here.

Standing At The Sky's Edge is at the Gillian Lynne theatre until Saturday 3rd August - tickets are available here.

Hadestown is playing at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue - tickets are available here.

You can follow queermusicals on Instagram here and Dr James Lovelock on Instagram here.

www.queermusicals.com

This episode's guest is director Tania Azevedo. Tania has directed several new musicals with LGBTQ+ characters including But I'm A Cheerleader, Mayflies and A Mother's Song as well as working as an associate director on & Juliet and Heathers.

In this episode, we discuss Tania's work along with LGBTQ+ representation in the musical theatre industry.

The podcast is hosted by Dr James Lovelock.

You can find Tania's website here.

Don't forget to follow us @queer.musicals on Instagram and Facebook!

In this episode, I am joined by David Cumming and Zoe Roberts from Spitlip to discuss the fabulous smash-hit West End musical Operation Mincemeat. We talk about how the show has been shaped by the perspectives of its creative team (and actors) to represent women and LGBTQ+ people in a story that is dominated by male characters, and we explore how the real life characters and their legacies have inspired a new generation of musical theatre fans.

Operation Mincemeat

The year is 1943 and we’re losing the war. Luckily, we’re about to gamble all our futures on a stolen corpse.

Singin’ in the Rain meets Strangers on a Train, Noel Coward meets Noel Fielding, Operation Mincemeat is the fast-paced, hilarious and unbelievable true story of the twisted secret mission that won us World War II. The question is, how did a well-dressed corpse wrong-foot Hitler?

Tickets available here

Follow Operation Mincemeat on Instagram and Twitter

Follow Spitlip on Instagram and Twitter

Follow David on Instagram and Twitter

Follow Zoe on Instagram and Twitter

For more information about Dr James Lovelock and his research, go to www.queermusicals.com or follow queer.musicals on Instagram.

Tickets for fantasies come true - the queermusicals.com concert are available here.