First Day of the

“Writing Musical Theater”

Workshop

John Sparks

 

Theater Building, Chicago, September 17, 2005

12 students

 

Robb Murray’s Summary Notes

 

We will meet two afternoons a month for two years

 

Our ten-minute sample show following Year One:
 

 

OUR PURPOSE and BASIC UNDERSTANDINGS:

 

There are only about five places on earth where you can learn to write musical theater, and this is one of them here.

 

I can’t teach you to compose, write lyrics or write plays.  You can already do those things to some level of skill, which is why you were selected to be here.  But I can show you how to make all these things fit together into a good production.  This will help you communicate more completely through the theater. 

 

The writing process involves many rewrites, and a reworking of both the story and all the songs. It is never easy to produce a successful show, even for veterans. You have to keep working and making the show communicate more vividly and more directly all the time.  If it were easy to do this, we wouldn’t have to show you how.

 

Of course, there is not an exact formula, but there are definite patterns that you can see in shows that succeed   The techniques of musical theater could be seen as manipulation, but they are practices that both the authors and the public would agree upon as effective and that produces the experiences desired all around.

 

The way this workshop came to be is that a New York music director, Lehman Lender, conducted  over 300 Broadway shows over his long career, many of which, naturally,  failed.  He looked for the elements that made successful shows work, and he taught me  and a number of others what he’d learned.   And that’s what I’m passing on to you now.

 

By definition, a show happens in the moment. Rehearsals don’t count. It is the whole event, with the responses of all concerned, including an audience, that makes a show what it is.  That’s why we are giving you live audiences in the actual theater, before you’re done here, two years from now.

 

The reason why “they don’t write musicals like they used to” is that they don’t show them like they used to.  Now, the set is everything, and the costumes.  And there’s usually no exit music, which misses an opportunity to create “take-home” tunes.

 

The way that any show tune becomes memorable is simply through reprising.  In the traditional musical, there were always several places where a tune could be repeated.  First there was the overture; then there would be several times during the show when the song could come back in various ways, then came the finale, and finally an exit number.

 

As far as the book (the play) is concerned, you are going to see that it is a scaled-back version of non-musical theater.  There isn’t time for the same processes of uptake to occur in the audience of a musical show, and the musical, emotional part of it also takes up a lot of the thoughts and feelings of the viewers.  So the story is a simpler one, generally, and must be told within certain guidelines that we are going to be learning.  There is no cookbook and no real rules, nor would anyone want that.  But most shows fail.  We are going to teach you why the shows that succeed do so. 

 

As far as the songs go, we will be writing them in AABA form.  There is a newer ABABCAB style, kind of a variant of the traditional song, that has gotten popular.  But we are going to stick for a while to the familiar song style, where you get 8 bars of something, get it again, then get a different patch of sound, then return to the same material the song opened with. 

 

The way the audience responds to this is unconscious, but very predictable:

First “A” section – song is introduced, should be likable

Second “A” section —by this time, they’re humming along

“B” section—something different, a distraction

Third “A” section  – now the tune is an old friend

 

The terminology applied to the parts of songs has changed.  The “introduction” to a song used to be called the “verse”.  The “song” used to be called the “chorus” and the “chorus” the “refrain”.

 

PLAY WRITING  for musical theater

 

Drama productions as we think of them originated in Greece, where plays pretty much told the public what was considered the moral order and what would happen if people transgressed it.

 

American musical theater resulted from a combination of show types, the main one of which was the operetta from Europe. This musical form was too highbrow in feel for Americans, with its themes involving nobility and other class-conscious accoutrements.  So, with it, Americans combined vaudeville and burlesque (which was a full kind of show, not stripping – or, at least, not JUST stripping).  This new American combination always had ordinary people, not counts, duchesses,  etc., going through their struggles

 

The book, or libretto, contains all the words of the musical, including those that are sung. It is the outline within which you’ll do all  of your drafts in rewrites. You’d be lost without it.

 

In many ways, musical theater is neither theater nor music, as these are normally pursued outside the world of musicals. That’s because the theater piece of the show must be written more simply, and the music must specifically illuminate that story.  The music and play must work together or they can confuse the public.  There should not be a lot to puzzle over.

 

The basic setup of most musicals is

1 a character or several people who want something they don’t have

2  their going about seeking this thing in various ways, and

3 the conclusion, where they either get it or don’t.

 

Now here are some guidelines for writing a musical, versus a play:

 

1             Original works and play ideas not previously published and known generally do not make it as musicals, but book adaptations more often do, and the musicals are often better than the original books.  An example of a show that outshone the book is The Sound of Music, where the very successful stage version of the musical was even itself again outshone by the film version.  The breathtaking Austrian scenery put the movie in a class by itself.   Another example is My Fair Lady, where the original play was a social tract but the musical was “a confection.”   The Most Happy Fella also outshone its original book.

 

2             Characters should be very “pure” and understandable, not varying from their established personae. They do not change their basic natures through the production.  This is not a good environment for character development, as with films and plays.  If someone, for  example,  is a complainer, a dreamer, a tyrant, etc. they should not be expected to change radically, though they may gain insights.  For example, Henry Higgins remains a pompous ass throughout the entire My Fair Lady, and Liza Doolittle remains simple. Her only wish throughout was to be able to sell flowers indoors instead of outdoors in the weather, as she sings in “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”.  Higgins has taken her to many society events but these do not have anything to do with her interests. 

 

3             Plot-wise:  Do not surprise the audience at the very end of the show. This is employed in plays but does not work in musicals. It is better for the characters to be surprised at the end, but with the audience already knowing what will happen. This creates greater dramatic tension, suspense and ultimate satisfaction for the audience.  When there is a change of the original objective on the part of  the main characters, this is called “purpose abandonment”, but it is still used to gratify the viewers.  For example, a guy “gets the girl instead of the gold” but decides that that’s better anyway.  Sometimes a character may have a realization that changes an original point of view.  For example, Ado Annie  “was a girl who just couldn’t say no” but it turned out that others were the same, just better at hiding it.

 

4             Dramatic tension:  Create situations where people want to say or express strong emotions but for some reason cannot -- for example, lovers who feel attraction but are in public and cannot act on their feelings.  Or, put enemies into a situation in which they cannot escape each other and are forced to confront.

 

5             Communication through songs:  Unlike art songs, in which the voice is used like an instrument and is the most important thing, the lyrics in a musical song must always be understood completely, exactly, and the first time out.  The lyrics have to be so clear that they slide into the year and cannot be mistaken.
               Part of how you bring this about is with exact rhymes. Do not use half-rhymes, slant-rhymes or any other approximations, or unusual stresses on syllables, such as “fa-mi-ly” or “des-ti-ny.”. You want your lyrics to be foolproof. Do not call attention to the lyrics or to yourself as writer by using an overly-erudite word or term that most people are not apt to understand.  Puzzling over that word can cause them to miss oncoming lines of the song. Often people have gone to dinner and had a glass of wine before attending the theater, and it is your job to make sure that they do not miss anything at all regardless.

 

6             Handling strong emotions:  People in musicals want things and want them very badly.    With a strong emotion, such as love, don’t have the characters name the emotion itself.  Have the feeling demonstrated through other words.  It is too strong for them to say “I love you” many times, and it becomes boring.  Even 70 years ago, one well-known song that did this was criticized roundly at the time, and opinions have not changed. 
              One type of song is the “love possibility” song, such as “If I loved you.”  This convention is used very often.  Say that love might be possible but do not go overboard.

 

7             Directing very strong emotions, especially crying:  Writers know exactly when audiences will cry during musicals. It is not a surprise when this happens, and in fact a great deal of trouble has been gone to, to make sure that it does happen. It is part of what the audience is seeking.
               To bring out crying, a direct appeal for tears is a bad strategy.  For example, self pity is never accepted by musical audiences, except as a form of humor. When someone experiences a horrible tragedy, the audience will not accept witnessing a total defeat, and such a gaffe can make a musical fail.  So, for example, in Carousel, when the girl’s husband is dead and she is left alone with her child, her aunt, for dramatic purposes,  can’t be seen giving in to the tragedy. Instead, she recasts the situation and sings an inspirational song (“You’ll Never Walk Alone.”).   This releases the audience from the risk of revulsion at too much pathos and, instead, now nearly every audience member is going to think and feel, “This is what I want to believe I would do in this same tragic situation -- show hope and create better possibilities.”   This is what releases the audience to cry, in its identification with the stalwart response, yet its pity for both the dead and bereaved.  In a sense, the audience is crying because the aunt doesn’t have to.  She has provided the fortitude under which they can cry.
               Another example from theater is Death of a Salesman, when Willie Loman has committed suicide to try to get insurance money for his sons.  Of course, it turns out that the insurance company will not pay off on his behalf. When his wife some time later pays a visit to his grave and says “I can’t cry, Willie.  I just made the last payment on the house,”  the audience cries because this is what she and Willie had always wanted. 
               In West Side Story, Maria at the end is contemplating the death of Tony.  If a dirge were played, the audience might shut down.  But when it hears a repeated theme from earlier, “There’s a Place For Us”, a hopeful song, played in the face of evidence that there isn’t any hope at all for them, tears flow.

 

8             Using a break before renewed or intensified emotion:  If an emotion is building, break up the progression.    When the emotion comes back unexpectedly, it will be stronger.  An example from Shakespeare is in Macbeth, where men have killed the king.  They stand for a moment, feeling the danger they are in.  When they hear a loud banging at the gate, they are petrified, but the only one who walks in is the drunken guard who is clearly of no threat. Everyone relaxes and then the actual soldiers do show up, and the terror is all the greater.

 

9             Know your “moral goal”:   There is a moral relationship between the musical’s message and the audience. The show is a  tool of social communication.  There are  three situations relative to the values of the authors vis-à-vis the audience. The musical may:

--reinforce the audience values -- like a Shakespeare play

--challenge their values -- like an Ibsen play, or

--attempt to change their values – like a play of Shaw’s or Brecht’s.

 

10           Romance:   There must always be romance in a musical, even if it is just alluded to.  This is one of  the leading  ingredient that audiences are seeking.  Characters in musicals want strongly the things that they want, and feel the things that they do very strongly, and this must always be stressed and underscored.  “Oh, what a beautiful morning!” in Oklahoma conveys an attitude that his  feeling is almost too much for words.    The themes of a musical must matter to the characters very much -- but they must also matter to be the audience very much!  Otherwise, they won’t come back, won’t recommend the show, and a flop will result. 

 

11           The “truth test”:  When you write, let this character at this time be your main reference point. For every word spoken or sung, ask, “Is this really what this person would think, feel, say?”  Keep asking and re-asking.  Believability and authenticity is critical.  The dramatic moment must produce your words, and govern your word choice, rather than the words’ trying to create the drama.

 

WRITING GOOD SHOW SONGS

 

We will write four kinds of songs:

1          A ballad

2          A charm song

3          A comedy song, and

4          A dramatic scene song

 

A ballad is smooth, flowing and legato.  Save releases of large amounts of energy and vocal execution for the ends of songs.  There is too much over-the-top singing done throughout ballads nowadays.

Good examples of ballads

--“There You’ll Be” (waltz) from The Fantasticks

--“I Will Follow You There” in G Minor from Milk and Honey

--“I’ll Be Missing Her:”

 

Examples of charm songs:

--Lucille Ball singing “Hey, Look Me Over!” John Sparks’ comment:  “It’s a good thing to make people feel happy, folks.”  It’s also important to help them feel others things, but this feel-good function is a big draw for musicals and is what people want.

--“How Proud I’d Be” song from Bye, Bye, Birdie

 

Comedy songs are often based on a complaint:

--“Miss Marmelstein” from Funny Girl may have been responsible for Streisand’s whole career

--“You can always count on me to find the wrong man”“, a Cy Coleman song

 

The last song we’ll do is the musical scene song during which something big happens, often a major decision  made. These songs may move in and out of dialogue during the singing, and some of them can be very long

--Carousel song where the guy says “I’ll get the money even if I die trying”, which he then proceeds to do. 

 

Aspects of good songs:

 

1 Melody:  Shows needs songsmiths working on them, not necessarily composers.  Irving Berlin was a songsmith, Gershwin a composer.

Song Examples:

--Tea for Two—written in 1925, still hummed.  Memorable

--Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

 

2 Interesting Rhythm:  both in melody and in accompaniment

--all Cole Porter songs in his shows were beguines

 

3 Your own style:   You achieve a style by writing a LOT.

 

4 The True Voices of the Characters (as above)

 

5 Progressive feeling:  Use the song to advance the show along, not only to celebrate a moment

 

6 Sticking to the song topic.

 

7 Exact rhyming.  The lyrics, again, have to fall into the ear, and make sense immediately.

 

 

HERE WE GO!

 

Most of our time in the workshop will be spent in hearing each other’s material.  We will always work in collaborative groups, at least two people on a piece. 

 

Besides your homework, bring your own projects in this year.   I’ll try to help you get what you want from them.

 

Try your best not to be sensitive when you hear people’s comments on your material.  Be  flexible to make changes.  You can always go back to the original if you want, but you will lose out on  learning opportunities if you fail to try things different ways as suggested by your peers.