We Are Noisemaker

Noisemaker is the award-winning writing partnership of 
Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie. Formed in 2012, Noisemaker have written, developed and produced over 20 new works as a partnership. Using music, song, humour and heart: we strive to tell stories that bring people together to explore, and sometimes challenge, our sense of humanity.

As individuals, Scott and Claire have worked with a wide variety of companies including The National Theatre of Scotland, Goodspeed Musicals, The Royal Lyceum, Stellar Quines, Dundee Rep, Citizens Theatre, Channel 4, Northwestern University, Sheffield Crucible, Unigram and the BBC. 

We both trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - Scott as an actor and Claire as a composer - and met through our training in 2009. We quickly discovered that we liked (and often disliked) the same things when it came to theatre, but it wasn't until a few years later that we considered the possibility of writing together.

Unbeknownst to Claire, Scott had submitted an idea to a new writing festival in Glasgow called On the Verge. To his surprise, the application was successful and (after convincing Claire that writing a musical together would be a great idea!) we began work on our first project; FREAKSHOW. 

Neither of us had planned, or expected, FREAKSHOW to have a life beyond it's initial run in Glasgow. But the show went on to tour to London, where it was awarded the Daily Mail Drama Award 2012. This enabled us to take the show to the Edinburgh Fringe the following year. This was our first turning point. If we wanted to produce, develop and create our own work, we'd need a strong foundation to build it from - so we formed Noisemaker!

Now ten years later, Noisemaker have worked across the globe: from Glasgow to New York, London to Chicago, we’ve collaborated with a wide variety of companies and artists to find new and compelling ways of storytelling and further explore how music and song may be used to connect with and affect our audiences. 

As a Scottish partnership, we began writing and developing our work in Glasgow initially before expanding to theatres and audiences throughout the UK. In 2015, we were chosen by Walt Disney Imagineering and NMI Inc. for their New Voices Award. This scheme recognises the most promising new writing talent in the field of musical theatre and resulted in a concert of our work in Burbank, Hollywood plus expert songwriting mentorship. It also began to share our work on an international scale.

2016 marked our first production in the USA, with our show FOREST BOY being selected for the New York Musical Festival (NYMF). We were the first Scottish writing team to have ever been selected for NYMF, and since then have continued to grow on both sides of the Atlantic with equal passion and ambition; collaborating with organisations like the National Youth Music Theatre, the American Musical Theatre Project at Northwestern University in Chicago, The National Theatre of Scotland, Goodspeed Musicals in Connecticut, Mercury Musicals, Sheffield Crucible Theatre and The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  

In 2018, Noisemaker received a Scottish SME Business Award for our work and innovation as a writing partnership. This award was for Unique Scottish Business of the Year and marks the first time an arts organisation or partnership has been acknowledged in this category. 

We returned to the States in 2019 for a seven-week residency with the American Musical Theatre Project at Northwestern University in Chicago, developing a new version of their ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ musical; THE GIRL WHO. In the summer of 2019, our newest show HI, MY NAME IS BEN premiered at Goodspeed Musicals in Conneticut, in partnership with Dundee Rep. This was the first international collaboration for Goodspeed and is a piece we were both proud to present at their historic theatre. HI, MY NAME IS BEN was then selected by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre for their Festival for New Musicals in New York. This saw the show chosen from hundreds of applications and showcased alongside the most promising new writing in the field.

Noisemaker were thrilled to partner with Selladoor Worldwide, Dundee Rep and DC Thomson to bring the iconic Scottish comic strip “Oor Wullie” to life. OOR WULLIE premiered at Dundee before embarking on a hugely successful national tour across Scotland and it was a privilege to bring one of Scotland’s most beloved characters to the stage in a new story for audiences today.

During the height of the COVID lockdown in the UK, Noisemaker partnered with Scotland’s leading podcast network The Big Light to develop our stage show ATLANTIC into a seven-part series featuring Blythe Duff, Richard Rankin, Kate Dickie and David Hayman. The podcast became hugely popular, taking the form and structure of a musical and adapting it into a rich, dynamic audio series. It was cited as number one in the Fiction Series charts of Apple Music and Spotify and, most recently, was awarded Best Fiction Podcast at the Great British Podcast Awards 2022.

In 2023, we were thrilled to return to our home city of Glasgow to work with legendary Scottish theatre company A Play, A Pie and a Pint. Led by Artistic Director, Jemima Levick, PPP produces a new play every week! And is one of the most prolific theatre companies in the world. SCOTS was commissioned as part of a new season of work and tells the story of Scotland - all it’s history, it’s people, it’s places, it’s successes and failures - all in under 60 minutes. The show was an acclaimed success and, following its run in Glasgow, we were invited to New York City as part of Tartan Week to play the world-famous 54 Below - the first time a Scottish musical has made it to their stage! After a whirlwind in NYC, SCOTS returned to home turf for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it sold out its run at the Ghillie Dhu.

Now with several projects in the US - including CEILIDH; THE SNOW GOOSE; HI MY NAME IS BEN and ATLANTIC - we decided it was time for a change of scenery and recently took the leap across the pond to New York. With firm ties still to home, we’re proud to now be a truly international partnership that strives to create and develop original stories that connect audiences around the world. And with the landscape of new musicals more diverse and ambitious than ever, we feel honoured to still be making the work we do over a decade since we started.