Ballad Lines Q&A at Southwark Playhouse Elephant. © Hannah Burgin

When director Tania Azevedo and composer Finn Anderson were first commissioned to write a new musical together in 2017, they wanted to follow two parallel lines of exploration.

The first line of exploration: the migration of traditional ballads from Scotland and Northern Ireland to America and how they survived and evolved in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia.

The second: questions about female agency and freedom, a woman’s ability to have a say over her own body, especially in relation to motherhood and how those choices shift from one generation to the next.

“Where one story ends, another begins”

Nine years later, those two themes coalesce beautifully in Ballad Lines, which – after workshops and readings in Chicago and Edinburgh and productions of earlier iterations (under the previous title A Mother’s Song) in Scotland – is now receiving this full commercial staging and world premiere season at Southwark Playhouse Elephant.

In Ballad Lines, a forgotten melody in a box of cassette tapes left to her by her aunt pulls Sarah, a queer woman in modern New York, into the lives of two of her female ancestors: Cait, a 17th-century Scottish pastor’s wife, and Jean, a spirited teenager in 18th-century Ulster.

Across the centuries, Sarah, Cait and Jean face the same defining question: what does it mean to become a mother – and at what cost?

The show, which has music and lyrics by Anderson and a book by Anderson and Azevedo, blends Scottish, Irish and Appalachian ballads with a bold contemporary score to tell a story about one family’s hopes, sacrifices and songs across generations.

For the post-show discussion I chaired, I was joined by director and co-book writer Tania Azevedo, producer Katy Lipson from Aria Entertainment and the full cast – Frances McNamee, Rebecca Trehearn, Sydney Sainte, Kirsty Findlay, Yna Tresvalles, Ally Kennard (the sole male actor), Sian Louise Dowdalls and Gracie Lai.

With, to borrow a phrase from the show, “a distinct lack of dick” on the panel (apologies, Ally!), it felt only natural to dive deep into that first line of exploration.

How much of a draw was it for the company to be involved in such a female-centred project and how has the experience played out in both rehearsal and performance?

Ballad Lines runs at London’s Southwark Playhouse Elephant until 21 March 2026.

Q&A video

Me with (left-right): cast Gracie Lai, Sian Louise Dowdalls, Ally Kennard, Yna Tresvalles, Frances McNamee, Sydney Sainte, Rebecca Trehearn and Kirsty Findlay, producer Katy Lipson (Aria Entertainment) and director/co-book writer Tania Azevedo. With thanks to Gary Law.

Q&A photos

With thanks to © Hannah Burgin.

Show trailer

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