A Permanent State of Emergency
Full-length musical | Large ensemble | 2019; revival 2022
Book and lyrics by Joshua Val Martin | CSSD commission
Directed by Sue Dunderdale | Music by Toby Ingram
‘Jess pawns her Mum’s engagement ring as a means of getting out of Leicester, hoping to find a more meaningful existence far away… but wherever she looks - in Amsterdam, in Kraków, in Berlin - she only seems to find new and ever deepening emergencies…’
ABOUT THE MUSICAL
A Permanent State of Emergency is a political musical comedy commissioned by the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama for its graduating Acting Musical Theatre company. It was Joshua’s second original musical for CSSD, following I’m Afraid of Amerikans in 2018.
WRITING FOR THE ENSEMBLE
Joshua wrote the book and lyrics for a large ensemble, interviewing the performers and watching them work before developing roles around their individual qualities. The company shifts between countless individual characters and a Greek chorus, giving Jess’s journey the scale of an unruly epic.
Written in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, the musical asks how a generation comes of age when all around us appears to be amidst emergency.
Production and development
The original production ran at Central’s Webber Douglas Studio on 19–22 June 2019, with direction by Sue Dunderdale. Further development at Hope Mill Theatre was interrupted by the pandemic. The musical returned there in 2022, reworked as a concentrated cabaret.
Selected creative credits
Director — Sue Dunderdale
Composer - Toby Ingram
2019 Movement director - Jüri Nael
2019 Musical director - Matthew Spalding
2022 Producer - Ali Michael
Song: ‘I Want To Be A Student Again’
Lyrics by Joshua Val Martin. Music by Toby Ingram. Performed by George Bury.
THE SONGS
Other songs included ‘We Are the Gentry’, which satirises gentrification.‘Vegans Don’t Commit Genocide’ used grotesque cabaret to ask who we should really be scared of.
Joshua wrote 'I Want to Be a Student Again’ specifically for George.
George Bury and Joshua later went on to work together on With Love, Mr. Gay.