A Beautiful Way To Be Crazy

I am thirteen years old. We are approaching the end of 1999 and to celebrate the imminent end of the world, I have bought a sequined pale blue top from Tammy and painted my nails for the first time, in silver. I feel very grown up, and I have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do with my life - I’m going to “be a famous musician”.

Based on interviews conducted with female and non-binary practitioners across the music industry, A Beautiful Way to be Crazy is a tale of growing up and finding a voice. Weaving together spoken word and music, award-winning poet Genevieve Carver and her live band (Tim Knowles, Brian Bestall and Ruth Nicholson) explore what it means to be a girl in the business of music – with a little help from Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone and Delia Derbyshire.

Bridging the gap between poetry, theatre and live music, A Beautiful Way to be Crazy is an innovative piece of gig theatre that combines audio clips with live performance, and crosses musical genres from soul to electronica via Baroque and math rock.