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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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NIMH 2019 will take place from July 8th through August 4th. And here's a sneak peek at some of this year's musicals
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The show is called Ladyship. It takes place in 1789 London, where over the course of several years
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over 25,000 women were convicted of petty crimes, some accurately, many falsely
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And instead of being sentenced in London, where they would have been previously, were sentenced to seven years in Australia
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which was a giant lie. What was really happening was they only had male convicts in Australia
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and realized the only way to get women there was to forcibly send them there. So when they got off the boat, they basically had two options
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Marry who we tell you to marry or spend the rest of your life in a workhouse. And it's a story that we don't hear very much of
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and I'm really excited to explore it on stage with such incredible music by the band The Twigs
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We did the song I'll Be Your Anchor, which is about people finding strength in each other when faced with adversity
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How did it all come about Well, we grew up doing musicals in school, and we've always known that we wanted to write a musical
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Our band toured for many years, and then we were just looking for a topic
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and we stumbled across this true story, and that's what led us to write this musical
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and I lived in Australia for a while and I would hear stories like someone would say
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hey my great great grandmother stole a loaf of bread that's why she's here and kind of never wondered
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that's kind of harsh like what was the story behind that and when we started reading about the history
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and it's really a hidden story even a lot of Australians don't know it
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about the women's role 25,000 women and they really became the mothers of Australia
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and it's an incredible story of resilience and it's inspiring and I think once the story got hold of us
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it did not let go we just had to do it Honestly, I've been a reader for years as well
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and I was just stunned when I read the show First of all, it's a historical story
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that I knew almost nothing about based on completely true events these horrible things that happened
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to over 25,000 women in late 1700s, early 1800s England but also the music is just so beautiful
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and sort of while still being respectful of the time periods that it in transcends that time period as well And without hitting you over the head with sort of the modern feminism of what we looking at now
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lets you fully live in the time period it exists in, while the music brings you into a present mind frame of
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oh, these are things we still have to deal with. I have a young daughter, and she was age 11, and I was sort of seeing how she was starting to look at the outside world
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don't look at the stars. And I was thinking if they would send girls as young as 11
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and they were in the belly of the ship and a poor young orphan
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in London probably never saw the stars. So this is the first time where she's opening up
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her possibility and imagining what her future could be. In seven years
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I will be grown I just want to have a home Somewhere there's light
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There's no work to be done And I'm smiling There's gold thread in my dress
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I don't have to clean the mess And I'm wishing It's not so far
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I been a part of NIM for a very long time I done a number of readings and productions here I worked with the festival one year as well
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And it really has just grown so much over the years. And to get to continue being a part of such a wonderful place
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that births new musicals and really gives writers a chance to see their work up on its feet for the first time
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to do full productions of that work in front of an audience, it's just such valuable feedback that you can't always get
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from a reading or not actually having a full production. The fact that we get to do that on such an impressive scale
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but still with a minimalistic budget and be able to pull amazing talent together
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to put that show together, it's really just an incredible opportunity to work on a new show
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Our song, I'll Find a Way, is about finding the strength within you
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and finding parts of yourself that you didn't know you had that helps you survive and face another day
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Strong inside he waits, I'll find no season day. As I stand in the face of the fire, I put away my way
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Find a way. Find a way. Find a way
