by David Almond
adapted for the stage by Harvey Brough (music)
Leah Hausman (movement)
and Jenifer Toksvig (words)
Picture by Ollie Dibben
A new adaptation for YMT:UK, took place at Casterton School in Cumbria in August 2010.
During a three week process, this short piece of music theatre was devised in collaboration with a cast of young people, aged between 11 and 19.
To compose leitmotifs for the characters, the cast used innovative composition software developed at MIT that translates images drawn on electronic sketchpads into notated music. Their ideas formed the basis for the musical world of the piece, just as devised work on storytelling formed the basis for Jenifer's contemporary verse libretto.
This project was an exciting collaborative experiment that brought together the often opposing worlds of scripted adaptation and devised work, of opera and music theatre, of live and recorded music, of modern music technology and the ancient art of storytelling through song.
