The Music

by Allan Scott – Book and Producer

Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical

“Who’s doing the music?” asked my friends when I told them that the we were preparing to mount a musical version of the seminal Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert. That was always the question: “Who’s doing the music?”

Well, as it turned out, the technical answer to the question is “Tony Hatch, Ron Miller, Ken Hirsch, Robert Van Leeuwen, Victor Edward Lewis, Henri Belolo, Jacques Morali, Jimmy Webb, Allee Willis, Jonathan Lind, Felipe Delgado, Dino Ferakis, Freddie Perren…”

Because there are more than 60 composers and lyricists responsible for the musical elements in the show. Although it would be hard to describe them as unsung, most of their names will barely be known to the general public! But for those who see the show between the ages of, say, 25 and 45, the music which this litany of talent created, will be wonderfully familiar. Tunes you can hum, lyrics you can remember, musical numbers defining an era.

When embarking on the project to adapt The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert as a stage musical, the first creative issue was indeed “Who should do the music?” Should we approach a British composer, an American one, an Australian one? Should we approach a single composer – or several?

In giving these questions consideration, our first concern was that the movie itself was filled with music both as background score and in the numbers which the celluloid drag queens so memorably performed. Much of that music had gone on to achieve iconic status and was closely identified with the film. So as a creative matter, it seemed to us that it would be a shame to discard such seminal numbers as I Love the Nightlife or Shake Your Groove Thing. We couldn’t just ignore them.

As I sat down with Stephan Elliott, the creator of the film, to write draft after draft of story outline, framework, scene concepts and overall script for the show, the most important question of all remained unresolved. “Who’s doing the music?”

The answer emerged as much by accident as by design. Our early drafts of the script indicated a mixture of numbers from the film itself, some numbers we hoped to have specially composed, some additional songs auditioned from the vast iTunes library which seemed to fit into sections of the story, and other music from weird and diverse sources. Too much of a pot pourri, but a beginning.

By a lengthy process of workshop, discussion, re-draft, more workshop, more re-draft, producer suggestions, friends’ ideas and a cascade of input from a wide range of sources – including most notably our director Simon Phillips and his team – the final musical shape of the show began to emerge.

It happened organically as only carefully considered and long-analysed things can happen. The musical selection derived, eventually, through the very best of creative processes: each number was appropriate to the dramatic imperatives of the story and the script.

We hope that this apparently haphazard though carefully focused approach has worked to the best advantage of the show. Because, in the end, we were not confined to the musical talent of any single composer, no matter how talented he or she might have been. What we had arrived at was, within limits, the ability to select our music from the greatest and largest talent pool of all. Just about everywhere.

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