A prize fund of £12,000 has been given out to develop a new musical.

Perfect Pitch and Theatre Royal Stratford East (TRSE) announced the winners of the 2015/16 Perfect Pitch Award Musical Theatre Writing competition, at a ceremony held at St James’s Theatre on February 5.

The winning duo of Daniel York and Craig Adams, beat off stiff competition from three other finalist teams, to secure the coveted award fund that will go toward developing their new musical piece, Sinking Water.

Speaking of his collaboration with Craig and their ultimate win, Daniel said: “I think it helped that we both have similar ideas about not placing limitations on what musical theatre can be in terms of subject matter and storytelling.

“Added to that we’re both very passionate about the subject matter we chose; the 2004 Morcambe Bay Chinese cockle picker disaster. We really felt it was a story that needed to be humanised and told as there are some real issues about the plight of migrant workers.

“We now have a year-long process where we develop the whole thing so there’s going to be a lot of research, a lot of thinking, a lot of rough drafts, workshops etc. I can’t wait to get going.”

Now in its second year, The Perfect Pitch Award show saw four finalist teams pitch ten minutes of an idea for their new musical to a judging panel that included, actor, singer and Perfect Pitch patron Michael Ball, comedian David Baddiel, choreographer Kate Prince, playwright Roy Williams and TRSE director Pooja Ghai.

Kerry Michael, Artistic Director at TRSE said: “I am delighted Daniel and Craig were announced the winners.  They came with something completely different. A story that hasn’t been covered much on stage through a musical or a play.

“They were a great collaboration. Craig’s music has a great quality to it and Daniel is a talented playwright.”

The other finalist teams were Ashton Moore and Ben Fensome, Zara McFarlane and May Sumbwanyambe, and Gavin Whitworth, Shireen Mula & Joe Von Malchowski.

In regards to the high calibre of contestants Kerry added: “We had a remarkable group of finalists who all offered something very different. This made the job of judging this competition extremely difficult.”

Perfect Pitch is a UK theatre company dedicated to the creation and development of new British musicals. For more information click here.