ASIAN PIRATE MUSICAL is an exciting new show seeking to make a special studio cast recording of our 16-song soundtrack. We need your help to make sure we can produce and release it free online and available to everyone!
[For a version of the Crowdfunder video with text-to-speech, please see the bottom of this page].
WHAT IS ASIAN PIRATE MUSICAL?
The year is 2049, and Nazar floats alone at sea: ship empty, supplies meagre and all hope lost. After sailing through a strange storm, four strangers from across time and space crash land on Nazar’s deck. The pirates struggle for power – and acceptance – make enemies – and friends. As the budding-bickering crew sail through ship graveyards and fight mutant deep-sea monsters, they try to find a place to call home in this ravaged world.
Asian Pirate Musical (APM) is an original new musical by Zhui Ning Chang, Frey Kwa Hawking, Jade Leamcharaskul, Sarita Lewis, Nemo Martin, and XANA. It intertwines the real histories of 14th century Muslim admiral Zheng He and 19th century pirate queen Sek Yeong with the fictitious stories of a 21st century climate survivor and two 23rd century queer space revolutionaries in a soaring time-travel pirate adventure. Set on Southeast Asian seas in a world threatened by climate collapse, APM explores freedom, found families, and finding fun in the face of our future.
We want to see fun, decolonial, science fiction musical theatre, that is original and iconic, that celebrates communities and cultures that have been historically marginalised. People of colour, who are trans, non-binary, who are immigrants, who are disabled, diaspora, from colonised worlds who bear the repercussions of the climate emergency. People like us.
ASIAN PIRATE MUSICAL is how we are making this happen.
WHAT ARE YOU RAISING MONEY FOR?
After 5 years developing this musical, with a sold-out showing of the first act at VAULT Festival 2020 and various sharings at Moongate Mix, SIGNAL, and R&D workshopping at Pleasance Theatre, we will be staging a 2-day concert production on 21 and 22 November 2024 at Pleasance Theatre in London (which you can buy tickets to here).
To mark this milestone, we are making a studio cast recording of the musical which will be released online for free so that it can be accessed by anyone, anywhere!
The album will include 16 musical numbers, with songs grand and earnest, intimate and catchy - and we want to bring it to musical lovers and listeners far and wide.
In order to achieve this goal, we require funding to cover studio hire fees and to fairly compensate our performers, librettists and composers, technicians and post-production artists.
WHAT DOES APM SOUND LIKE?
APM is a genre-devouring musical that uses an experimental, orchestral blend of traditional instruments, 21st century Asian pop and indierock, and musical influences from our diasporas.
The video below features instrumental snippets of the soundtrack:
If that isn’t enough to sate your appetite, here are two videos from our VAULT performance in 2020:
Hai Onwards
Without You
WHAT IS THE BUDGET AND TIMELINE?
Between studio hire costs and fees for our cast, librettists and composers, technicians and post-production team, we need a total of £6,500 to produce the album. Our budget accounts for platform fees, conversion rates, and potential contingency costs.
We’re investing £1,500 and must raise an additional £5,000 to fully fund this project.
Timeline:
- November 2024: We rehearse the music for the concert production.
- December 2024: We record the cast album in the studio.
- January and February 2025: We edit, mix, and master the album.
- March 2025: We upload to streaming platforms; patrons who selected ‘early access’ will receive a digital copy of the album.
- April 2025: We release the album to the public! All patrons will receive a digital copy, and additional rewards will be sent out including PDFs of annotated pages from the musical, an invite to a listening party with the creative team, and the making-of booklet.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS AND CHALLENGES?
1) Delays due to studio and team availability.
The biggest risk is if our cast or studio availability changes. We have AV checked the team with our preferred studio dates and have a flexible timeline to accommodate sudden changes or if vocals are recorded in the new year.
2) Not raising the total funds needed.
If we do not raise the total funds needed, we would make minor changes to the album setlist. Our goal is to release the full soundtrack of 16 songs, but we may reduce this to 10-12 to ensure our team is fairly compensated for their time.
WHO IS APM CREATED BY?
APM is co-created by a core team of six creatives who collaborated on the book, music, and lyrics: Zhui Ning Chang, Frey Kwa Hawking, Jade Leamcharaskul, Sarita Lewis, Nemo Martin, and XANA.
The APM team draw on our varied immigrant and minoritized backgrounds to create this work, including heritage from Malaysia, Thailand, Jamaica, the Philippines, Japan and New Zealand, a majority transgender/non-binary/genderqueer and/or female lens, and our cross-disciplinary expertise within and beyond musical theatre, including video game music, indie rock bands, film design, and decolonial academia—all of which has fed into APM’s hybridized form.
The soundtrack will feature vocals from Yñaqui Tuason-Inocian, Rai Endah, Nabilah Hamid, Ashley Goh, and Amanda Maud.
We’re looking forward to having you on board our pirating adventure!