a musical collaboration about love and connection from 11 diverse writers across victoria and new south wales, presented by eleven o’clock theatre
“the more specific a story is, the more universal it becomes.”
The Breaths in Between started out back in March 2021 with a very simple aim: in an industry where we continue to see inappropriate, racist, transphobic, homophobic, fat phobic, ableist, and otherwise harmfully normative stories and casting briefs, The Breaths in Between sought to bring together a group of diverse, intersectional writers to tell stories about love and connection that they felt represented their experience and the stories they wanted to see explored through the medium of musical theatre.
Developing The Breaths in Between
Under Eleven O’Clock Theatre, Maya Britbart Ellazam and Bronya Doyle recruited a team of writers from across Victoria and New South Wales, capturing queer, BIPOC, neurodivergent, disabled, and body diverse voices. The team then spent months Zooming each week across various lockdowns where they discussed, learned, and shared their lived experiences. The conversations were nuanced and stimulating, and many of us left these discussions more honest, aware and connected people. After each week, the creative team presented the writers with prompts related to that week’s discussion to respond to with songs (either solo, or as part of a collaboration). Each week they brought back something thought-provoking and delightful for the group to discuss. As we moved through these sessions, The Breaths in Between became much more about this process of give and take, learning from each other, and breaking down our biases and preconceived notions of what music theatre can be and who it can represent.
The creative team then took their favourite pieces and worked with a wonderful group of actors to unpack the potential in the songs and monologues that had been developed. Each of actor brought a new and refreshed perspective to the writers’ work, and the collection of pieces that were presented as part of this showing is the culmination of the writers’, performers’ and creative team’s hard work. These pieces cover an expanse of topics, including:
LGBTQIA+ coming of age, exploration and relationships
connection to culture
neurodiversity in relationships
intersectional relationships
gender identity and presentation
mental health and therapy
family dynamics and sibling relationships.
A core tenet of this project was exploring intersectionality and the love and joy we have as diverse humans existing in this world, and we are firm believers in the notion that the more specific a story is, the more universal it becomes.