Be Our Guest with Gus Gowland

Gus is an award-winning writer and composer from London and based in York, UK. His first full-length musical Pieces of String premiered in 2018 at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester. It was The Stage’s Best Regional Musical of the year and was nominated for the UK Theatre Best Musical Production award. For Pieces of String, Gus won The Stage Debut Award for Best Composer/Lyricist, and was nominated for the inaugural Writer’s Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting. His song cycle Lifeboats, celebrating the LGBTQ+ community was performed at the Kings Head Theatre in London as part of the MT Pride season in 2023 and his second full-length musical Mayflies premiered at York Theatre Royal in 2023, to great acclaim. Gus was commissioned to write new works for York Theatre Royal’s Love Bites and Green Shoots and has written two short musicals – an audio musical short Subway which was released in 2020 - and SICK! which was performed at LOST Theatre, London. In 2021, Gus, with Craig Mather, wrote and released an EP of pop songs focused on mental health In Motion. His short play Clocks & Teapots was performed at Rada Studios & the London Transport Museum. He co-wrote and directed Barren, (special prize for merit at the LOST One Act Theatre Festival), Love Love Love (Canadian Fringe Tour) & wrote & performed in Tell Me On A Thursday at the Camden Fringe. Gus wrote two songs for Copyright Christmas, for Olivier award-winning theatre collective Duckie at the Barbican. Gus was commissioned by Hull Pride for their City of Culture celebrations and co-wrote with Alistair Brammer on the MADTrust album ‘The West End Goes MAD for Christmas’. Gus is a MGCFutures Bursary recipient and has been shortlisted for the Stiles + Drewe Best New Song Award twice, the Perfect Pitch Award and The KSF Artists of Choice program. Gus’s work has been presented at BEAM, the Theatre Royal Stratford East Musical Theatre Workshop and has been supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation. Gus is currently resident artist at York Theatre Royal. In 2014, Gus was on the UK Jury for the Eurovision Song Contest!