Queer Writing Panel with Finn Anderson, Tania Azevedo and Laura Schein 

LGBT+ History Month / Queer Writing Panel with Finn Anderson, Tania Azevedo and Laura Schein

The University of Wolverhampton is pleased to present a talk with writers Finn Anderson, Tania Azevedo and Laura Schein.

This panel will be a Q+A session with industry writers who have created LGBTQ characters within their work. Finn Anderson and Tania Azevedo collaborated on several musicals including A Mother’s Song and The Bowmaker, and Laura Schein co-wrote and starred in the off-Broadway hit Emojiland.

The University of Wolverhampton encourages original writing as part of its undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Performing Arts and Creative Writing. 

Moving between the worlds of music and theatre, Finn is an award-winning Scottish composer, writer and singer-songwriter. Finn has co-created four award-nominated musicals as a composer, lyricist and scriptwriter, consistently tackling diverse subject matter and wide-ranging musical styles.

Tania Azevedo is a critically acclaimed director, dramaturg, theatre maker and facilitator. Her work invests in a combination of different performance styles and theatrical languages often incorporating musical story-telling. Tania's work has been presented in theatres across the UK and internationally including Theatre Royal Stratford East, The Other Palace, The Hope Mill Theatre, Theatre503, King's Head, The Citizens Theatre, The Union Theatre, The VAULTS, The Bunker, The Edinburgh Festival Fringe amongst others. 

Laura Schein is an actor/writer living in Los Angeles, California. She is the co-creator and star of the acclaimed new musical Emojiland (New York Times Critics Pick; Richard Rodgers Award Finalist; Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Off-Broadway Alliance Nominee), which opened January 2020 off-Broadway at The Duke On 42nd St. She voiced multiple roles in the animated feature UglyDolls, for which she also co-wrote the Kelly Clarkson/Janelle Monae duet "Unbreakable," shortlisted for the 2020 Academy Awards. She was a lyricist for the Netflix musical series Westside, and is the lyricist on the musical series Marriage Material for Jeffrey Katzenberg at Quibi.

Dr James Lovelock is a musical theatre academic with a background in improvising and creating musical theatre. He was the original musical director for Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, and his musical Sunshine Guy was premiered at the University of Birmingham in 2013 and subsequently performed at the Landor Theatre in February 2013 as part of the From Page to Stage series. James is the director of Baron Sternlook Productions, which produced two full runs of Baron Sternlook's Improvised Musical at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2014 and 2015 and continues to perform regularly in Birmingham and the West Midlands.

James graduated with a PhD from the University of Birmingham in 2017 after submitting his thesis titled 'Not Just For Gays Anymore: Men, Masculinity and Musical Theatre'. He has been involved in a range of LGBTQ initiatives including a concert performance of Soho Cinders as part of LGBT History Month in February 2015 and the establishment of a staff-student LGBTQ* Performing Arts research group at the University of Wolverhampton in 2017. James has over 15 years of teaching experience and has presented papers at both national and international conferences.

LGBT+ History Month 2021

The Louder We Get - An LGBT+ concert-lecture / The influence of Sexuality on Design: Workshop and Discussion / Queer Writing Panel with Finn Anderson, Tania Azevedo and Laura Schein / LGBT+ Equality - Then and Now / The Life of Pierre Seel: Remembering the forgotten LGBT + victims of the holocaust / Pronouns – Top 5 Tips / Some Other Me: Bisexual and pansexual representation in theatre / I'll Cover You: Performing Angel in Rent