Recipients Revealed For The 2025 Cameron Mackintosh Resident Musical Theatre Writing Team

Musical Theatre Network (MTN) and Mercury Musical Developments (MMD) have announced that Clare Packham and Fintan Kealy have been selected as the next recipients of the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Musical Theatre Writer placements at British Youth Music Theatre (BYMT).

The writing team will begin their residency at BYMT in Leeds this Spring 2025. During the six-month, full-time placement, Packham & Kealy will develop an original new musical. Fintan Kealy, the composer, will also serve as Music Coordinator for BYMT’s 2025 season of new musicals, while Clare Packham, the bookwriter, will lend her dramaturgical expertise to all productions in the season. The placement includes a guaranteed production or developmental workshop week in 2026, featuring a cast of approximately 36 young performers, providing Packham & Kealy with an invaluable opportunity to bring their work to life on stage.

The Cameron Mackintosh Resident Musical Theatre Writers scheme is a flagship initiative run by Mercury Musical Developments and Musical Theatre Network, with funding from the Mackintosh Foundation. Established in 2011, the programme connects professional musical theatre writers with host organisations, offering the chance to work on writing and composing assignments, shadow developmental and rehearsal processes, and develop original material.

Since its inception, the scheme has awarded 19 paid placements and is recognized as a vital career development opportunity for composers and writers in musical theatre. Past hosts include renowned organizations such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre of Scotland, MAST Mayflower, Theatr Clwyd, Octagon Theatre, Hope Mill Theatre, and The Lowry.

Clare Packham & Fintan Kealy, recipients of the scheme said: “We are delighted to have been selected as the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Writing Team at BYMT.  This is a brilliant opportunity to work with an organisation that is committed to developing original work, aims to transform perceptions of musical theatre, and is dedicated to championing the benefits of the arts in the lives of young people. We’re grateful to Mercury Musical Developments, Musical Theatre Network, the Mackintosh Foundation and to BYMT for this exceptional opportunity, and for their unwavering commitment to new musical theatre. We’re excited to be developing our own new work, alongside collaborating with BYMT and numerous fantastic artists during their impressive 2025 season.”

Emily Gray, Executive Director of BYMT said: “It was delightful to see such passion for working with young people in the applications for this residency from so many brilliant writing duos. It feels the perfect moment for Clare and Fintan to take time to develop a new musical specifically for and with a large group of young performers. Having shown their energy and commitment in creating and producing their own work, it’s now time for them to become a core part of a thriving arts organisation. At BYMT we are so excited to work with them as writers and theatre makers and we hope this residency will give them the support and connections needed to secure their future in the new musicals’ sector.”

James Hadley, Executive Director of Musical Theatre Network (on behalf of co-ordinators MMD & MTN) said:“This Cameron Mackintosh MT Writing Team placement is a fantastic opportunity for a pair of musical theatre co-writers to have a focused period of collaboration, while in residence with BYMT – the UK’s most prolific commissioner of new musicals. As with past placements, being in residence with a producing theatre or company offers a step-change professional development opportunity, through day-to-day insights into the realities of new musicals being produced, access to a network of industry contacts, and a range of experiences working directly with BYMT’s participants and other professional creatives staging new musicals.”

Packham & Kealy have been writing together since 2017. Their work ranges from FLITCH, a musical about the Great Dunmow Flitch Trials, to It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Madge, a solo show about Margaret Cavendish, where performance art meets experimental musical theatre. Their work has been showcased in BEAM2023 at Oxford Playhouse, presented in a masterclass with Claude-Michel Schonberg, and they have been finalists for The Pleasance’s Charlie Hartill Award in 2024 and 2025. Their genre-bending comedy musical Killing Time in Darkminster will be produced at Lincoln Arts Centre in May 2025.

Clare Packham is a writer and director. She met Fintan at the University of Bristol, where she studied Theatre and Performance. She is co-founder of artist collective PINCHY theatre, who create new work across the UK. In 2021 she was selected as a Resident Artist for Hypha Studios, in a disused three-storey, vaguely derelict high street Thomas Cook building. Here she conceived numerous live events, installations, and an audio ‘dream walk’.

Fintan Kealy is a composer and musical director. He met Clare at the University of Bristol, where he studied MArts Music with Innovation. He was the recipient of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation’s Associate Musical Director role at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where he was mentored by Wendy Gadian. He is also an Associate Artist of PINCHY theatre.