Glasgow-based writing duo, Bethany Tennick and Iona Ramsay have won British Youth Music Theatre’s New Music Theatre Award for their show Welcome to Serene, (The Town with the Machine).
The award aims to find and support exciting new voices in musical theatre across the UK.
The competition is open to writers, lyricists, composers, music producers and creators under the age of 30. Applicants are asked to send a synopsis, outline or concept with supporting music, script or recordings.
Previous winners include Jack Godfrey and Martha Geelan whose musical Babies has recentlt played a series of concerts in the Lyric Theatre in the West End.
Welcome to Serene follows the story of a small coastal town facing extinction with regular avalanches of sand covering everything, and a machine that is trying to stop it. The production will be presented in a full production as part of the BYMT Summer Season 2024 at the New Wolsey Theater in Ipswich.
Chief executive and creative director Emily Gray said: ‘Our young people are hungry for epic stories with relevant themes that will inspire them, their audiences and the sector to question what a new musical can be.
‘We are delighted to be working with Iona and Bethany and know they will ignite passion in our Young Company as they create a weird and wonderful community and question responses to climate change, capitalism and social contracts, through contemporary musical theatre storytelling.’