Gus Gowland

Gus is an award-winning writer and composer from London and based in York, UK. He is the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer at the National Theatre of Scotland and a resident artist at York Theatre Royal.

His first full-length musical Pieces of String premiered in 2018 at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester. It was The Stage’s Best Regional Musical of the year and was nominated for the UK Theatre Best Musical Production award. For Pieces of String, Gus won The Stage Debut Award for Best Composer/Lyricist, and was nominated for the inaugural Writer’s Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting.

Gus’s second full-length original musical, Mayflies, was produced at York Theatre Royal in 2023, to great acclaim and 9 BroadwayWorld nominations. His song cycle Lifeboats, celebrating the LGBTQ+ community was performed at the Kings Head Theatre in London as part of the MT Pride season in 2023.

Gus wrote the English Book and Lyrics for Korean musical You and It (EG Musicals) and has been commissioned by theatres including York Theatre Royal and Theatre Royal Stratford East. The Barn Theatre presented a concert of Gus’ work as part of their The Barn Presents the music of… series in 2021 and in 2020 MP Theatricals released Gus’ audio short musical Subway. Gus has also written songs for Olivier award-winning theatre collective Duckie, Hull City of Culture and for MADTrust.

Gus is a MGCFutures Bursary recipient and has been shortlisted for the Stiles + Drewe Best New Song Award three times – including this past year, with his song 'Viareggio'. He has also been shortlisted for the Perfect Pitch Award and the KSF Artists of Choice program. Gus’s work has been presented at BEAM, the Theatre Royal Stratford East Musical Theatre Workshop and has been supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.