#musicals
Wait For Me II / Wait For Me (From Hadestown Trailer) - Eva Noblezada & Reeve Carney
Johanna (From “Sweeney Todd”) - Jamie Muscato
St. Jimmy (From “American Idiot”) - Billie Joe Armstrong & John Gallagher Jr.
Is life imitating me or is rage imitating life? I feel like a civil war, like a knife in the heart. I’ve got an axe to grind and it is splitting my head open. No friends, no girls. I NEED BOTH.
We’re the Same (From “Girlfriend”) - CJ Pawlikowski & David Merino
cincocosas said: Hi, do you have any advice for writing a musical play? Thanks
I confess that I am not very knowledgeable on this topic. Though I’ve written songs and plays, I have never written a musical, and so I cannot offer you any advice from firsthand experience. Bearing that in mind, I have five tidbits of very general advice and a bunch of links for you!
- Read Musicals. I feel like the fact that you ought to watch musicals should go without saying, but you should also read them. The Book (a.k.a. the Libretto) contains the stage directions, dialogue, song lyrics, etc. for a musical, and you should read as many as you can get your hot little hands on. Just as a novel writer should read novels, a writer of musicals should read (and watch) musicals.
- Practice dialogue. Get really good at characterization and plot development through dialogue. You’re not going to have the luxury of narration in a theater setting, so learn the art of storytelling through the voices of your characters.
We’ve got a whole tag devoted to dialogue. You may find some useful posts there.Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother had big eyes.
becomes
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. My, what big eyes you have!- Get a partner. It’s great to have someone to talk to about ideas and to help develop your story. Also, writing duets and ensemble pieces becomes much easier with another person around.
- Learn to read and write sheet music. Hopefully you play an instrument like the piano—knowing how to play an instrument will make writing a musical so, so much easier—but not everyone can read and write sheet music. You can learn using resources like this one.
- I also recommend that you choose a format for your playwriting and stick to it. That will speed up editing and simplify things when you have to refer back to different parts of the musical as you write. Trust me. A single, consistent format is super helpful.
Articles
- How To Write a Musical by John Kenrick
- Stephen Schwartz - Tips for writers
- Writing For Musical Theatre by Perfect Pitch
- On Writing A Musical by David Reiser
- Playwriting 101 by Jonathan Dorf
Books
- Writing Musical Theater by Allen Cohen
- The Musical Theatre Writer’s Survival Guide by David Spencer
- Beating Broadway: How to Create Stories for Musicals That Get Standing Ovations by Steve Cuden
- Writing The Broadway Musical by Aaron Frankel
- Words with Music: Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto by Lehman Engel and revised by Howard Kissel
- How Musicals Work: And How To Write Your Own by Julian Woolford
- Making Musicals: An Informal Introduction to the World of Musical Theater by Tom Jones
Maybe some fellow writers will comment on this post with their advice on writing a musical! Would anyone be willing to share their musical-writing expertise with us?
- yonder-window said: As to musicals, one of the most important things is that there must be a damn good reason the characters sing. Songs have to go to places the dialogue doesnt, they can’t rehash anything that was spoken. They have to build past speaking emotionally.
Thank you for your question!
-C
Sea Sponge Handles an Avengers Level Threat: The Musical, cringe fest compilation part 2
Sea Sponge Handles an Avengers Level Threat: The Musical, cringe fest compilation part 1
Go to Starbucks. Order coffee for “Prisoner 24601”
When they call out your order, jump up and yell “My name is Jean Valjean!”
And if the barista replies with “AND I’M JAVERT,”you tip that motherfucker so hard
you tip them right over the edge of a bridge
you fucking didn’t
A movie based off of a musical based off of a stage play based off of another movie based off of a book based off of an urban legend based off of what might have been a true story.
pizza wasn’t invented until the late 19th century so that means everyone in les mis died before they could try their first pizza and that’s why les mis is such an upsetting story
There was this skinhead that was harrasing her, and she just walked right up to him and said:“I’m more of a man that you’ll ever be. And more of a woman that you’ll ever get.”
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modern les miserables au where ‘drink with me’ becomes ‘shots shots shots’
was that a fucking pun
“In these dangerous times, where it seems the world is ripping apart at the seams, we can all learn how to survive from those who stare death squarely in the face every day and [we] should reach out to each other and bond as a community, rather than hide from the terrors of life at the end of the millennium.” - Jonathan Larson (x)
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