Jenifer Toksvig

Bookwriter and lyricist Jenifer Toksvig writes for both youth theatre and professional adult production. Current projects include a new adaptation of David Almond's The Savage in development with YMT; organising the next MThe:UK event with Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts; working as dramaturg in the development of new musical theatre with the Danish Musical Theatre Academy; teaching Musical Theatre Writing to BA Creative Arts students at Portsmouth University; further development of The Snow Queen with the assistance of the musical theatre students at the Royal Academy of Music.  Work in 2009 included the devising of two short operas for The Arcola Theatre's Youth Opera Project 2009, The Work of Art for Grimeborn 2009, and an adaptation of The Snow Queen in collaboration with composer Alexander Rudd for the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. Some recent musical theatre adaptations include Terry Pratchett's Mort (for YMT), Sandi Toksvig's Hitler's Canary, Geraldine McCaughrean's The Stones Are Hatching.
 
She also guides sessions on the writing process for writers of music theatre through Mercury Musical Developments, for ChrisGradyDotOrg, and with students of the Royal Academy of Music and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts amongst others. Jenifer is the administrator, and a member of MThe:UK, a network of institutes and individuals teaching musical theatre in UK higher education.
 
Jenifer is very interested in exploring cross-genre collaborations, and stretching the form of music theatre in new ways. She's also passionate about the writing process, and about encouraging and facilitating awareness of writers and their craft, both from the audience's point of view and also within the theatre industry itself.  Jenifer is a graduate of the Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and a Professional Writer Associate of Mercury Musical Developments. Samples of her work and more information can be found at www.acompletelossforwords.com