What’s in The Box?

Coral Drouyn talks to writer/composer Paul Hodge about his TWO Musicals due to hit the stage in 2024, including Black Box, which opens at QPAC on May 10^th,

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell, “To have one musical staged is good fortune, to have two sounds like sheer talent!”

The struggle to get local musicals into production in Australia can’t be over-stated, and yet musical wunderkind Paul Hodge has two musicals in production in the next six months, with a third plus an opera slated for next year. The output is astonishing.

So….? Paul Who? It’s quite possible that many south of the Queensland border may not know the name, Paul Hodge, or to give him his correct title, Dr Paul Hodge, PHD in Musical Composition. It sounds grand, but Paul’s deep commitment to Musical Theatre has seen him already launch two musicals which have played to critical acclaim and full houses. While Joh for PM, starring Colin Lane, might seem like a parochial state production (despite its original cast album), Clinton the Musical made it to Off Broadway, New York where it won the Best Off Broadway Cast album and garnered a swag of other nominations.

Luckily for us, Paul did NOT follow the path that was laid out for him by his family. Both his parents were doctors and the options talked about were medicine, the law, or the church.

“Somehow I just couldn’t see myself as a priest,” Paul tells me, “but explaining that I wanted to study music didn’t go down terribly well. Not until my mother actually came and heard my work, and then my parents were convinced that this is what I’m meant to do.”

Paul’s next outing is his flashy imagining of Round The Twist, based on the fabulous children’s TV series from 30 years ago. That, in turn, was based on the writing of the wonderful Paul Jennings, perhaps our most revered children’s author ever.

“I watched the series when it was repeated when I was a kid,” he enthuses, “but I couldn’t imagine that one day I would adapt it as a musical, much less work with someone like Simon Phillips as my director.”

But surely Black Box is right at the other end of the spectrum?

“It is,” he explains, “and I thought it was strange that the Black Box flight recorder (which is actually orange) is the greatest addition to aviation safety since flying began, and yet so few people, even here at home, know that it was invented by an Australian, David Warren. I just felt compelled to tell his story.”

Warren lost his father in an air crash when he was only eight, and was driven by the desire to find out what had happened in those last few minutes before his life changed forever.

“David loved records, music - so it seemed logical, since his device was about recorded sounds - to use recording to tell his story,” Paul says.

The result is the first complete binaural musical - where every member of the audience wears headphones and the twin mikes in stereo become the ears of each individual. Though there’s a large cast and full orchestra in the audio, only David and his wife – played by two of our very best musical theatre performers, Michael Cormick and Helen Dallimore – appear on stage.

“It was an exciting time,” Paul tells me, “because we made all the changes while we were rehearsing just with a piano and only then did we take a five week break, and I revised the score and we recorded with the full orchestra. It was quite astonishing to hear it in full for the first time just a couple of weeks ago.

Black Box is original and innovative, but it’s a far cry from the satire of Joh for PM or the main stage appeal of Round the Twist.

But Paul, who is an avid Stephen Sondheim fan (his favourite musical is Into The Woods, which his Nana took him to see as a child) has a logical explanation.

“Sondheim wrote in so many styles and genres,” he says, “because you have to tell the story to the audience in the right form. So, he wrote almost slapstick comedy in A Funny thing happened On The Way To The Forum, and almost heartbreaking poignancy in something like A Little Night Music. I think, I hope, I’m always compelled to ask, ‘How is the audience going to connect to this story?”

Paul doesn’t have to wait too long to find out.

Black Box opens at the Cremorne Theatre on Friday and plays at QPAC from 10^th-19^th of May.

It promises to be something special.