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Why movie musicals?

  • Writer: Amanda Riddell
    Amanda Riddell
  • Sep 29, 2023
  • 1 min read

  1. I dislike theatre. My Mum digs stage shows, but that's not me.

  2. They're cheaper. That's not a joke: stage musicals are insanely expensive. Seriously: a Broadway musical generally costs between $5-20 million. My total spend on my musicals is under $100,000. And I had a full pit of 20 players for POAK. That only cost $7,000. 👍 That's far better than some lame cosplay evening with Circa. 👋

  3. The financial return is usually greater; if anyone took a chance on a theatrical run of Portrait of a Knight, I'd hope we could make back the $40,000, and therefore enable the cast and crew to participate in the profit participation that they are entitled to. Ngā Taonga has the DCP. Anyone with the ability to book theatres could run POAK.

  4. I love movies. And, it turns out, I'm good at making them. Plus the movie audience is clearly less conservative and less bigoted than the NZ theatre audience, who simply cannot accept me as Amanda the trannie. Prove me wrong, theatre kids, but so far you've told me I'm a sick freak (but you wish you had my gift for melody). 😡

  5. I grew up on albums; for me, a great audio play is equal to a great movie. That's why I'm taking a page from the ALW playbook and telling people to fund a concept album of my 2030 musical; people funded Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita with concept albums BEFORE they were stage/screen hits. 👋🎶

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2 Comments

Amanda Riddell
Amanda Riddell
Sep 28, 2023

To NZ Opera: I will not let you produce stage adaptations of my musicals until you explain to me how you used the brown faces for Voices of Aotearoa, but ultimately gave the commission to Luke Di Somma. That deserves an explanation. Particularly as I've yet to see a rave review of Unruly Tourists.

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Amanda Riddell
Amanda Riddell
Sep 28, 2023
Replying to

It's not just sour grapes, though I'll say that if they had agreed to let me audition, it's entirely possible that they might have been able to 'own' Shipwrecked on Islands. But, no, I submitted a crappy photo, and they never even let me audition for that commission. Voices of Aotearoa was clearly a photo op, and not a legitimate audition. That's my POV.

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