The Perfect Match
Book by Mairead Dunsmore
Music and Lyrics by Samuel Macdonald
The Perfect Match is a romantic musical comedy, and it’s pretty dark. Well, dark in the sense that the lights go out after the opening number and the characters have to navigate both a messy apartment and a messy new relationship while they cannot see.
Rowan is a desperately trying to finish their musical when the lights go out and they hear a knock on the door. Charlie, the new upstairs neighbour is looking for a match to light their candles, and finds Rowan instead. The two of them clash in personality and spar over the meaning of love, but ultimately find themselves attracted to each other. The only problem is: what will happen when they’ve lost the cover of darkness, and they see each other for the first time?
The show plays with light and uses shadow puppetry to portray scenes from Rowan’s musical, but Charlie is never seen by the audience until the end of the show, when they find a match and strike it.
Technical Difficulties
Book and Lyrics by Joe Venable
Music by Samuel Macdonald
The stage is set, the lights are lit, and the kid's’ grannies are shuffling into the auditorium, but when the opening number of the school musical is interrupted by the unwelcome appearance of the safety curtain, some of the performers have to improvise.
Rhona, consigned to the technical team after a disastrous performance in last year’s show, is tasked with saving the show, all the while Headmistress Steelshaft is breathing down her neck, waiting for any excuse to shut down the theatre department.
Over the course of the show, the young performers bond and realise the true value of making theatre together - even Stevie, a football fan who attends theatre club against his will.
Magnificat
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Samuel Macdonald
Amelia, a closeted trans woman, is halfway through a packet of biscuits when the Angel of the Lord appears to her with glad tidings – she has been blessed with the task of bearing the child of God. This comes as a shock to her, and she explains that there is no way she can bear God’s son in her womb. The Angel dismisses her concerns, declaring that this time it will be God’s daughter. Amelia, having no reason to believe she is anything other than a man, thinks the Angel is missing the point.
There was that thing when she was a young boy and used to ask for the “girl” toy with her Happy Meal, but that was just because she wasn’t really interested in wind-up cars. And she did like that one episode of Fairly Odd Parents where Timmy accidentally wishes to be a girl – it was just an entertaining story. Or the months she spent as a teenager trying to learn how to lucid dream so she could be a girl in her sleep, purely out of curiosity.
Being faced with the claim that she is really a woman at the same time as discovering angels are real and that she is pregnant is all a bit overwhelming. After fighting tooth and nail to deny what deep down she knows to be true, Amelia challenges the Angel. How is she even going to carry a child when her anatomy is not built for it? How will she raise a child when her financial position is already precarious? If she’s supposed to be a woman, why did God, if it is apparently now clear He exists, make her wrong in the first place? Why especially when His followers are far from welcoming for the most part to queer people of any kind?
The Secret Language of Fans
Book by Mairead Dunsmore
Music and Lyrics by Samuel Macdonald
The Secret Language of Fans is a musical about small acts of rebellion, wonderful female friendships, and how those two can combine to improve the lives of women. The show is set throughout a London social season in the 1830s. Julia is a perfect high-society girl. Louise is not. Julia has worked hard to improve her station. Louise was born into hers.
Julia looks to make the perfect marriage. Louise doesn’t even understand what marriage is for. When the two meet and become close friends despite their differences, they invent a secret language to communicate across ballrooms while keeping Julia’s perfect reputation intact - fan language. Using their hand fans, they can gossip away without it being recognised.
Except, when the other girls of high society discover and start to use their secret language, it threatens to ruin the perfectly crafted persona that Julia has spent her life working towards, and she has to choose between her friendships or her image. But when she’s spent her whole life trying to be perfect, she doesn’t know how to let go of who she’s meant to be.