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A year after his work The Curious Case of Benjamin Button<\/em> won the 2025 Laurence Olivier Award for best new musical, Jethro Compton has big Hollywood studios calling to ask for meetings. He declines them all.<\/p>\n Instead, the British writer and director is working as dramaturge on an English adaptation of The Last Man<\/em>, a South Korean one-person zombie musical set in a tiny bunker \u2013 and the last project most people would expect from the hottest name in West End theatre.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m saying, \u2018No, no, I\u2019m busy right now. I\u2019m in Korea.\u2019 I\u2019ll come back to them at some point, but right now, this feels very exciting to me,\u201d Compton says.<\/p>\n It is a surprising priority, though Compton does not see it that way.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not very interested in my career,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m interested in doing things that excite me and challenge me and having new experiences and working with interesting people on interesting shows \u2026 I often will turn down projects that are probably a good career choice.<\/p>\n \u201cMy heart needs to connect with something, otherwise I just can\u2019t find a way to feel passionate about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n