Year 11 student at King Edward VI Five Ways School, Max Dickinson, recently performed a radio acting monologue, which aired on both Radio Scotland and BBC West Midlands.
Audio drama, 'Not Soft', written by Vicky Wild focuses on breaking free from student stress and exam pressure, and can be listened to here.
Following on from this, Max continues to develop his love of composing music, having been commissioned to write theme music internationally for the South Jersey Players in the United States for their production of 'Plumbarius Ex-Machina' by Jeff Dunne.
He has also been asked to create an underscore for a series of children's stories, 'Animal Farm Adventures' and most recently working in collaboration with Canadian company 'Off the Beaten Path' with professional composer Nico Rhodes and Broadway librettist Tory Doctor, commissioning Max to compose music for their Dungeons & Dragons style musical.
“Max is a truly gifted composer, possessing a natural fluency with the language of music. He is able to not merely put together pleasing music, but to capture spirit of a theme within the notes, effortlessly weaving songs that communicate stories and emotions with remarkable clarity.” – Jeff Dunne, Playwright (Maryland, U.S)
This all stems from Max's mother, Coral Dickinson, who having directed and taught drama for many years, knew that when lockdown hit due to the pandemic, a number of performers would be struggling. Coral therefore set up what was initially a small group of friends to run play-reading each week.
"I called it Caravan Theatre, as one of the members read from his caravan! We explored new writing and found that the group grew overnight with writers and actors from all around the world joining us. The Caravan community continues to grow even now" says Coral.
The group read plays over Zoom and record videos to be edited together to create mini productions to share. Max joined as an 'in house' composer, creating new pieces for intros and credit sequences.
Members grew to love Max's work and soon his services were in demand for other projects that they were running around the world, hence the Canadian and American commissions.
Some of Max's compositions can be found at:
https://soundcloud.com/user-748052763
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvtGltYUUH8wmKlZfVPJLKA
