About Us
School Musicals are a suite of musicals created specifically for Schools by Chris James.
Chris is an experienced teacher, trainer and STEM Coach, with a love of song writing and playwriting.
In the early 90's Chris wrote songs for the Life Education program and in particular Harold the Giraffe. These songs were used extensively in Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Africa and USA with hundreds of thousand of Children over many years.
While working on the annual musical at Westbourne Grammar School Chris became frustrated with the quality of schoolmusicals on offer. This led him to write Kinlochleven: The True Story of the Loch Ness Monster. This is published by Big Dog Publishing in U.S.A., U.K. and Canada and by School Musicals in Australia and New Zealand.
The musical was recorded with the original school cast by Harry Williamson - Spring Studios. Vera Hillas plays the piano with students performing on other instruments. Vera provided the musical arrangements for the show and the recording..
Later Chris wrote Tuck: the spiritual Journey of the Curtel Friar. This was again was recorded by Harry Williamson with Mal Web providing vocals and brass instruments. This was first performed by Westbourne Grammar School in 2006.
The team got together again to produce 'Battle of the Beanfield'. This is a multimedia presentation with images of the event back-projected of the 'lost' ITN footage of this dramatic historical event. Chris, Harry and Mal were joined by Steve McGinley on drums and Sam Hooper on guitar.
In 2014, St Augustine's Primary School in Keilor put on 'Elvis: the musical'. The play was written by Chris, with all the songs are well-known Elvis hits.
In 2016, Chris has published a spectacular Latin Musical 'Agua Blanca' and working with the renown latin pianist, Justin Whyte.
In 2019, Chris collaborated with Monique Harkin to retell the story of the history of the Maccasan fishermen and their relationship with the Aboriginal people of the Top End.
His most recent production is a rework of the classic play for voices by Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood. Chris has composed music around poetry in order to adapt it as a Musical.
