His credits also include Public Domain, which transferred to the West End; Superhero, The Rink and Flyby.
In 2017, he founded SIGNAL, a concert series giving composers and lyricists the opportunity to showcase new material. The platform went on to support more than 300 writers, with its live events and online performances reaching audiences around the world.
Through his production company, ALP Musicals, Lenson developed artist-led work designed to challenge traditional ideas about what musicals should look and sound like and whose stories they should tell.
Scene from Lenson's Cable Street at Southwark Playhouse, London (Photograph © Jane Hobson)© Jane Hobson
In 2017, he founded SIGNAL, a concert series giving composers and lyricists the opportunity to showcase new material. The platform went on to support more than 300 writers, with its live events and online performances reaching audiences around the world.
The Tsitsit Jewish Fringe Festival paid tribute to Lenson following news of his death, remembering him as a brilliant writer and performer whose work helped audiences better understand the human condition.
In a message shared on social media, the festival expressed its sadness and extended its thoughts and prayers to Emma and the rest of his family.
It concluded: “May his memory be a blessing.”
Ricky Dukes, artistic director of Lazarus Theatre Company, also paid tribute, describing Lenson as “a legend” and “a massive inspiration to me and I know for so many”.
Dukes praised his “dedication to the craft”, remembering him as a “really cracking, funny and all round force of nature”.
Lenson’s death comes after a career spent challenging the conventions of musical theatre and opening doors for emerging writers.
Writing for Musical Theatre Review, producer Neil Marcus, who collaborated with Lenson on Cable Street and other projects, described a man whose passion for musical theatre went far beyond his professional responsibilities.
Marcus praised Lenson’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the art form and his determination to challenge assumptions about what musicals could achieve.
Lenson’s SIGNAL concerts gave writers the freedom to develop work on their own terms, rather than simply producing what the industry expected, he said.
Marcus also noted that Cable Street itself grew out of material presented at one of the showcases.
His death at 41 leaves a significant gap in British musical theatre, particularly among Jewish creatives seeking to tell stories on their own terms.
For a director who spent his career ensuring that other people’s stories were heard, his own legacy is now being carried forward by the artists he inspired.
