Being present...

written by Toksvig

This evening, a rather large group of musical theatre writers and composers are going to gather in a room with some representatives of the Writers Guild and the Musicians Union. Also in the room, we might find people from the Arts Council, some of the major new musical support groups, maybe some agents who represent writers, some academics, maybe a theatre critic or two... but predominantly writers and composers.

This event is about writers and composers. It's not for us, but about us.

It's certainly not for us to ask the people on the panel about the specific nuances of the business of writing musicals.

Mostly because none of them are musical theatre writers, but also because they already have all that information right there on the Writers Guild website, for anyone (even non-members) to download and read.

See the Musical Theatre section on the Rates and Agreements page for more info:

http://www.writersguild.org.uk/about-us/rates-agreements

If you didn't know that, and if you don't have the chance to read through all the info today, then feel free to throw your specific questions @AnotherNibble on Twitter. Either myself or someone else will probably have some pretty quick recall skills when it comes to what's in those documents.

Tonight's event certainly is about how we can broaden the business of writing musicals, to provide more of us with more opportunity to need specific answers about the business.

It's also about how we can empower the unions and support groups to do more of the supporting that they exist to do, to ensure that we're being treated fairly and equally, and to help us make more work, better.

I hope you've had the chance to watch some of the videos I've been putting online in The Larder's YouTube channel.

Not to worry if you haven't: I'm going to bring the main questions into the room and summarise, as an introduction to the event.

Don't forget that you can bring any question or discussion to the Twitter feed, and you can comment on these blog posts, and on the videos.

The only way to find out what kind of information you need is if you ask for it - on social media, or by email: the sooner you get the questions out there, the sooner someone can give you an answer. Or several possible answers, which I think is better: the more informed you are, the easier for you to choose what is right for you and your work.

Here is today's video.

Thanks for engaging in this series of videos and blog posts. After the event this evening, there will be more, so keep an eye out.