Ella Langley and Stephen Hyde
Ella Langley and Stephen Hyde are working on their first collaboration: an original dark-comedy-crime-thriller-musical called DEAD FAMOUS.
Ella 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.
Instagram: @ellagangly
Stephen 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 included commissions from the National Theatre and Other Palace; and has been performed at venues including the New Diorama, Hope Mill and Arcola Theatre; and his pop opera “The Marriage of Kim K” was included in 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.
Instagram: @stephenhyde27
Website: stephenjghyde.com
ABOUT ELLA & STEPHEN’S DEVELOPED WITH PROJECT
DEAD FAMOUS
DEAD FAMOUS is a dark comedy pop musical, with a diegetic pop soundtrack, charting the meteoric rise and fall of our (anti)heroine Evie.
Evie is an exploited songwriter sleeping on her dad’s couch, until she winds up the sole witness to an accidental manslaughter committed by her idol. In exchange for her silence, she’s offered a catapult into the spotlight of superstardom, but she has to walk an increasingly corrupt path to keep it shining on her.
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.
With DEAD FAMOUS, Ella and Stephen are bridging the worlds of pop and musical theatre, creating an original pop album of chart-ready bangers while drawing fans of both genres into a bold story that satirically skewers the corruption and entitlement at the heart of today’s music industry — all wrapped up in an irresistibly fun night out.
“After beginning both our writing partnership and this musical project as part of 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 Developed With.
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 other's projects..” – Stephen Hyde & Ella Langley