Brian and Zoe speak to Finola Southgate about her experience with making musicals from song cycles and why you should always start with the story before writing the songs.

Finola is a British songwriter credited with vocals and keys on the 2017 Monroes album and her 2021 Sister Session EP. Finola and Rosie Dart wrote We’ll Have Nun Of It, which was featured at the Edinburgh Fringe and had a 2-week run at The Other Palace in London. The show is an actor-musician piece, which follows the story of four friends navigating their final year at St Anne’s convent school. Set in 1967, it explores themes of Irish emigration, sexuality and faith with a folk-rock soundtrack.

From 2022 to 2025, Finola lived in Brussels where she co-founded the Brussels Musical Creatives and co-wrote Knocked with, among others, Zoe. She also directed Knocked’s first run.

Finola shares her insights into original forms of musical theatre, the benefits of collaborations and starting small.

Brian and Zoe discuss strategies to keep the fire going when their day job pulls them away from writing music. From finding time to write to creating a process to facilitate writing in their daily lives and, of course, taking care of themselves, they share their struggle and their successes.

Brett “that’s the MTea” Boles joins Zoe and Brian in discussing writing for musical theater, social media and music education.

Brett is an award-winning musical theatre composer, lyricist, and librettist. He wrote his first musical in high school and never stopped. His show Foreverman premiered at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) where it received an award for Outstanding Orchestrations and the New World Stages Development award. A reading of his latest creation, Time Stops, was headlined by Norbert Leo Butz in New York City. Brett is also a member of the Tony-Award-Winning BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in NYC.

Brett is the glasses behind the viral Instagram and TikTok series the MTea. His videos spilling the tea on how songs work have been commented on and shared by the likes of Lin Manuel Miranda and Bobby Lopez. In July 2023, Brett launched the MTea Songwriting Studio to help songwriters around the world learn more about their craft, which – spoiler alert – is when Brian and Zoe signed up and got to know each other.

Meet your hosts in the first-ever Making A Musical episode.