Stephen Keeling
Composer
@keeling_stephen
Sea Change
A New Musical for Five Actors
Book and lyrics by Michelle Magorian
Music by Stephen Keeling
Musical arrangements by George Venner
This musical is about five people who are stuck, or at an impasse in their lives. The experience of living together on a yacht and being stranded in a life raft forces them to wake up and to open up. And it changes them.
March 2024: Updated piano and orchestral score and libretto with fresh new layout
September 1998. The Hamble.
Guy, an ex-navy man and skipper of a single mast sailboat, sadly faces the last week of the year’s sailing season as his new crew of four holiday makers, all strangers, begin to arrive.
The crew
Marcus, an intelligent, working-class optimist and workaholic career climber in his twenties, has booked the sailing holiday hoping to persuade the skipper to give him an RYA Yachtmaster qualification so that he will be invited to the drinks parties on the Sales Director’s yacht.
Brenda, a nervous, upper middle-class woman in her fifties has never set foot on a boat and it is her first holiday without her husband. Anxious and apologetic, she is adjusting to being on her own.
Antonia, an energetic ex-classical dancer in her mid-thirties is hoping that a much-needed holiday at sea will help her discover what she wants to do for the rest of her life.
John, a northerner in his forties is on a sad farewell mission that needs to be carried out at sea. Highly experienced at sailing, although only in dinghies, he is a stickler for following nautical rules and regulations and has a narrow-minded attitude regarding certain people.
After a few learning hiccups at sea and successfully managing to survive a storm, Guy and his mixed ability crew discover they are on a collision course leaving them no choice but to abandon ship. As they sit for hours in a life raft, coping with the humorous and dramatic side of their situation, they begin to reveal more about themselves.
By the time rescue is in sight, their lives have been changed.
About the show
This new musical has book and lyrics by Michelle Magorian. During the seventeen years she performed professionally in theatres she played many roles in musicals and plays. (click to visit her website)
The first ever complete reading took place at The Actors Centre in London on November 30th 2016.
Several of the songs were recorded in February 2017 at Goldsmiths Music Studios by Meredith Braun as Antonia, Lewis Rae as John, Marilyn Cutts as Brenda, Benjamin Froehlich as Guy and Daniel Lillie as Marcus. The original demo was recorded by Lana Green, Heather Cairncross, Rob Kearley, Russell Wilcox and Laurence Wythe and can be heard on SoundCloud via the link above.
Sound engineers - John Milner, and Sean Woodlock at Goldsmiths Music Studios.
Listen to The Man In My Life (John and Brenda) and Love You (Guy and Antonia).
Recording the demo with Meredith Braun and Benjamin Froehlich