Great news! BML gets charity status

Yesterday, we received word that BML has been designated a registered charity, after several months of ongoing work. this will be a huge boon to us in funding, enabling us to apply to larger foundations which only consider applications charities. The founding trustees are Mark Annear (Head of Outreach for the Royal Ballet School), John Carlin (composer, Partner at Bell Davies and international trade advisor), Felix Cross (composer. writer, director, Artistic Director of NITRO, BML member and incipient OBE), Adey Grummet (performer, teacher, lyricist and BML member) and Carl Miller (playwright, director, former literary manager at the Unicorn, lyricist and BML member). David James remains as workshop programme director. Special thanks to John for spearheading the application process.

At the ballet

At the recent 'Chorus Line' auditions, Baayork commented on the what appeared to be a lack of ballet technique among the auditioning performers. It was pointed out to her that many dancers simply cannot afford to go to class between jobs. Or even when they are working: the basic salary for the performers in 'Chicago' at the Garrick (one of the smaller West End houses) was £450 per week for 8 performances, out of which they have to pay their agent's commission, their national insurance, their tax, their transport, acting, singing and performance classes, shoes, etc etc. After that, an extra 8 or 10 quid for a ballet class can take very careful consideration. With Rebecca Giacopazzi, BML is exploring the possibility of finding a room to set up a regular scratch class, which they could lead themselves to keep up their technique.

BML choreographers work with Baayork

Legendary Broadway performer and choreographer Baayork Lee, who is an incredible supporter of our plans to develop an ongoing musical theatre choreography workshop along the lines of the current writing workshops, invited BML to recommend emerging choreographers to shadow and assist her on the recent auditions for the upcoming West End production of 'A Chorus Line'. Rebecca Giacopazzi, Grant Murphy and Tim Jackson worked with her and her associate, Michael Gorman, for two weeks, including an 'open call' at The Palladium, where they saw 700 young dancers. Rebecca and Grant will be working with her further next month when she and director Bob Avian conduct callbacks. (Tim will be in rehearsals at the Chocolate Factory, where he is choreographing 'Merrily We Roll Along', which is being directed by Maria Friedman.)