Jay Miller discusses the Yard’s first musical – and why it had to be Sondheim

“It had to be Sondheim at the Yard.”

Artistic director Jay Miller is speaking amidst rehearsals for Lear, starring Ian McKellen and Taylor Russell, soon to open at the beautifully rebuilt east London venue. “We are at that point where we are trying to make sense of it. When you are in rehearsals, you are working beat by beat, and then when you start to look at the bigger picture, you try to figure out how it connects.”

The broader context of theatre-making often raises existential questions for any director. “As a communicator, it is hard to know whether you are communicating, or if people get the point of it,” Miller reflects.

Into that question comes a big and brand new 2027 project for Miller, newly announced exclusively by WhatsOnStage: a musical all about communication, connection, or indeed, miscommunication and disconnection.

The Yard’s upcoming production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company will mark the venue’s first musical. “I have had an itch to do a musical for a while,” Miller says. “I was going to be a musician before I went into theatre, so in my work and the way in which I think about work, it is musically, through rhythm and silence. I often incorporate a lot of music into my work, so it does not feel like so much of a departure from a process perspective. It is a new building, and we wanted to try something new. We are learning a lot making it, and Company is just so good.”

For Miller, the piece resonates strongly with contemporary social dynamics. “Company for me is about someone who is constantly looking at other people, not knowing who they are,” Miller explains. “In a world of Instagram where we are filled with images of our friends, exes, and family members leading their best lives, it felt like an excellent palette to explore what is expected of us and how those around us can influence who we are.”

The director also sees broader societal implications within the text. “There has got to be a bigger political element to it,” Miller notes. “In that digital dopamine rush that most of us are always in, it creates a cultural insecurity that something is always better or could be better. Politically we swing left to right so much more regularly. There were 11 Prime Ministers in that Cenotaph photo. If we are insecure about who we are not on a micro level, how does that affect the macro? It creates a weird instability culturally that is not useful and slows progress. That is the soul of it.”

On a personal level, Miller connects directly to the central protagonist. “Personally, I can relate to Bobby,” Miller says. “I was Bobby a few years ago. I am not now, but I always make work about characters that are in some way in my life. Bobby does not know what he wants. He does not know whether he wants kids, whether he wants a relationship, whether he wants to be with women, or whether he wants to be with men. He just does not know, and he does not know how to get through. We have all had moments in our lives where we have gone: ‘is this what I really want?’, even when experiencing the love of a child. You have moments where you question if this is the right thing.”

The production aims to balance these weightier themes with accessibility. “Honing in on those two elements – what is a life we should be leading, and how does that make us feel in a space of indecision and whether it feels like a trap – we are pursuing what will be a fun, playful musical that will make people laugh, make people sing, tap their feet, and hopefully want to dance,” Miller states.

The scale of the project represents a significant development for the venue. “It is going to be our largest cast to date, and we are touring it as well, which we are really proud of,” Miller reveals. “It is a co-production with ETT (English Touring Theatre), and it is touring to some really wonderful venues across the country. It will do a run at the Yard and then go on the road for six to eight weeks. It is a big show, [and I’m] moving from a little Lear to a big musical. It would not have been possible without the new building. The fact that people want to co-produce with us is such a thrill, and ETT have been amazing partners.”

Casting for the production is currently underway. “We are working on casting at the moment, though I haven’t got into it properly yet,” Miller says. “The musical director I am working with, Matt, and casting director Heather Basten are working on it. It is going to feature actor-musicians.”

Miller is exploring specific conceptual angles for Bobby’s psychological state throughout the narrative. “I am interested in the dreaminess of it,” Miller shares. “Is he high? Is he having a hallucination? Is he dreaming? Is he tripping, or is he zoning out in some form of psychotic state? I don’t know yet, but I know it is not real. The way it rolls around in terms of the episodic structure, it is not someone who is well.”

The musical’s climax offers a direct counter to online curation. “‘Being Alive’ is a wonderful antithesis to Instagram, which presents life as a neat, packaged product,” Miller observes. “It embraces mess, contradiction, things going wrong, and someone annoying you that you love. That is why it feels right to do now. If we were to acknowledge mistakes or the possibility of failure, we are actually more likely to be successful.

“That is the irony and the hope in the show. The hope is in the possibility of something being true and not packaged with a sheen on a digital screen… Sondheim and Furth’s book is so ripe for interpretation, complex but fun, and hopeful. It felt like the right artist to be engaging with at this point in the Yard’s journey.”

The staging has been a long-term goal for the organisation. “I have been working on it for a long time, having started at the beginning of the year and workshopping it in spring,” Miller notes. “We have had the rights for a few years. We initially thought we would open the new venue with it, which would have been a complete disaster because it would have tipped everyone over the edge, but we have known we were going to do it for a while.”