Stimuli

A stimulus doesn’t have to be a script. There are many different starting points for creating original work like photographs, props, music or just about anything that takes your fancy.

The musical, West Side Story by Stephen Sondheim is based on Shakespeare’s famous play, Romeo and Juliet. Sondheim transports the action to America in the 1950s, where American and Puerto Rican rival gangs represent the feuding Montagues and Capulets of the original story. Romeo and Juliet are replaced by the characters Tony and Maria, but the story of the ‘star-crossed lovers’ remains the same.

The concept musical 'Cats' by Andrew Lloyd Webber, is based on T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), which the composer recalled as having been a childhood favorite. The songs of the musical comprise Eliot's verse set to music by the composer, the principal exception being the most famous song from the musical, "Memory", for which the lyrics were written by Trevor Nunn after an Eliot poem entitled "Rhapsody on a Windy Night". Also, a brief song entitled "The Moments of Happiness" was taken from a passage in Eliot's Four Quartets. Lloyd Webber began composing the songs in late 1977 and premiered the compositions at the Sydmonton Festival in 1980. The concert was attended by T.S. Eliot's wife, Valerie Eliot and she loved the songs that Lloyd Webber had composed. She gave her blessing for the songs to be adapted into a musical stage play.