New Thinking: Disability in Music and Theatre

When Hugh Jackman starred in the 2022 revival of ‘The Music Man’, he was taking on a classic Broadway musical with a little known connection to disability. Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh at the University of Sheffield has been digging through the archives to uncover how early drafts of the show originally focused on the experience of a young wheelchair user – an idea which was then scrapped by writer Meredith Wilson due to commercial and social pressures.

Megan Steinberg is the Lucy Hale Doctoral Composer in Association with Drake Music (a leading national organisation working in music, disability and technology) at the Royal Northern College of Music. Megan researches and creates art that explores adaptive music technologies and able-ist bias in AI.

They talk to Louise Creechan about disability politics in music in an episode recorded for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3 December).

Dr Louise Creechan is a Lecturer in Literary Medical Humanities and Research Assosicate at the University of Durham, as well as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put research on radio

This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website under the title New Research including conversations about language learning, sign language, green thinking and neglected women artists.

Producer: Lola Grieve