Ella Langley and Stephen Hyde
About Ella
Ella Langley is a writer/director from Stockport. She writes emotional comedies that open audiences to darker subjects and gut punches.
Ella’s play Girls Will Be Girls sold out The Oxford Playhouse studio and Edinburgh Fringe venue. Incoming Festival programmed her comedy-drama Have I Told You I’m Writing A Play About My Vagina? at Bristol Tobacco Factory, New Diorama and HOME Manchester. She collaborated with Tony-winning writer James Graham on Sketching at Wilton’s Music Hall (published by Bloomsbury).
Ella is developing two comedy-drama short films. She was awarded a Screenskills bursary and completed the certified John Yorke Story For Script Development course.
About Stephen
Stephen Hyde is a multi-award-winning composer from Cumbria. Hailed by The Stage as “excellent, idiosyncratic and genuinely contemporary”, he has been creating pop-inspired musicals as co-founding composer of Mancunian music theatre company, leo&hyde, for almost a decade.
Stephen’s work has been performed across the UK at venues including The New Diorama, Hope Mill and The Other Palace; and his pop opera “The Marriage of Kim K” was included in the Lowry’s Rewrites festival, as well as opening the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre. He is also the co-founder and composer of actor-musician company, The Three Inch Fools.
About Stephen & Ella’s work
When struggling songwriter Evie is the sole witness to her pop idol’s crime scene, her secrecy buys her a catapult into the spotlight of superstardom. But is she willing to walk an increasingly corrupt path to keep it shining on her?
Dead Famous is a dark-comedy pop musical, skewering the music industry and our celebrity obsessed culture.
A glossy soundtrack of chart ready bangers - staged as concerts, studio sessions, viral tik toks and music videos - will bring both a live and multimedia approach to our production. Evie’s lyrics will mean one thing to her fans, but another entirely to us.
As this music thrusts us into an opulent pop industry, our story pulls it apart to examine the underbelly of celebrity entitlement and corruption.
“After beginning both our writing partnership and this musical project as part of The Lowry’s brilliant ‘Scratch Nights’ programme, we’re over the moon to be able to continue the journey and bring the full show to life as part of the Developed With cohort.
Lowry is a powerhouse for nurturing new musicals so we couldn’t ask for a better home to create the project than with Antonia, Matt and Grace. We can’t wait to create work alongside the rest of the cohort and see how our ideas and areas of interest can influence each others projects.” – Stephen Hyde & Ella Langley