1. Musical Libretto
2. Musical Librettos Online

Film, Romance, Adventure, Fantasy, Family, Musical, Disney. You're signed up! New Tools & Resources. Script Slug will be launching new tools and resources for. Matilda-the-musical-piano-conductor-score-pdf.pdf: File Size: 8340 kb: File Type: pdf. If you mean a musical theatre libretto, or “book,” to my best knowledge, there isn't one, as I looked for one recently myself. Unlike screenplay format, which has codified industry-wide, the musical theatre template doesn't have a universal consen.

A libretto (Italian for 'booklet') is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term libretto is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet.

Libretto (pronounced [liˈbretto]; plural libretti[liˈbretti]), from Italian, is the diminutive of the word libro ('book'). Sometimes other-language equivalents are used for libretti in that language, livret for French works, Textbuch for German and libreto for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word libretto to refer to the 15 to 40 page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained a very detailed description of the ballet's story, scene by scene.^[1]

The relationship of the librettist (that is, the writer of a libretto) to the composer in the creation of a musical work has varied over the centuries, as have the sources and the writing techniques employed.

In the context of a modern English language musical theatre piece, the libretto is often referred to as the book of the work, though this usage typically excludes sung lyrics.

Relationship of composer and librettist[edit]

Libretti for operas, oratorios and cantatas in the 17th and 18th centuries were generally written by someone other than the composer, often a well-known poet.

Pietro Trapassi, known as Metastasio (1698–1782) was one of the most highly regarded librettists in Europe. His libretti were set many times by many different composers. Another noted 18th-century librettist was Lorenzo Da Ponte. He wrote the libretti for three of Mozart's greatest operas, and for many other composers as well. Eugène Scribe was one of the most prolific librettists of the 19th century, providing the words for works by Meyerbeer (with whom he had a lasting collaboration), Auber, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi. The French writers' duo Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy wrote many opera and operetta libretti for the likes of Jacques Offenbach, Jules Massenet and Georges Bizet. Arrigo Boito, who wrote libretti for, among others, Giuseppe Verdi and Amilcare Ponchielli, also composed two operas of his own.

The libretto is not always written before the music. Some composers, such as Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Serov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Puccini and Mascagni wrote passages of music without text and subsequently had the librettist add words to the vocal melody lines. (This has often been the case with American popular song and musicals in the 20th century, as with Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's collaboration, although with the later team of Rodgers and Hammerstein the lyrics were generally written first, which was Rodgers' preferred modus operandi.)

Some composers wrote their own libretti. Richard Wagner is perhaps most famous in this regard, with his transformations of Germanic legends and events into epic subjects for his operas and music dramas. Hector Berlioz, too, wrote the libretti for two of his best-known works, La damnation de Faust and Les Troyens. Alban Berg adapted Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck for the libretto of Wozzeck.

Sometimes the libretto is written in close collaboration with the composer; this can involve adaptation, as was the case with Rimsky-Korsakov and his librettist Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky [ru; de], or an entirely original work. In the case of musicals, the music, the lyrics and the 'book' (i.e., the spoken dialogue and the stage directions) may each have its own author. Thus, a musical such as Fiddler on the Roof has a composer (Jerry Bock), a lyricist (Sheldon Harnick) and the writer of the 'book' (Joseph Stein). In rare cases, the composer writes everything except the dance arrangements – music, lyrics and libretto, as Lionel Bart did for Oliver!.

Other matters in the process of developing a libretto parallel those of spoken dramas for stage or screen. There are the preliminary steps of selecting or suggesting a subject and developing a sketch of the action in the form of a scenario, as well as revisions that might come about when the work is in production, as with out-of-town tryouts for Broadway musicals, or changes made for a specific local audience. A famous case of the latter is Wagner's 1861 revision of the original 1845 Dresden version of his opera Tannhäuser for Paris. Utorrent 2 2 1 windows 10 download.

Literary characteristics[edit]

The opera libretto from its inception (ca. 1600) was written in verse, and this continued well into the 19th century, although genres of musical theatre with spoken dialogue have typically alternated verse in the musical numbers with spoken prose. Since the late 19th century some opera composers have written music to prose or free verse libretti. Much of the recitatives of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, for instance, are merely DuBose and Dorothy Heyward's play Porgy set to music as written – in prose – with the lyrics of the arias, duets, trios and choruses written in verse.

The libretto of a musical, on the other hand, is almost always written in prose (except for the song lyrics). The libretto of a musical, if the musical is adapted from a play (or even a novel), may even borrow their source's original dialogue liberally – much as Oklahoma! used dialogue from Lynn Riggs's Green Grow the Lilacs, Carousel used dialogue from Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, My Fair Lady took most of its dialogue word-for-word from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, Man of La Mancha was adapted from the 1959 television play I, Don Quixote, which supplied most of the dialogue, and the 1954 musical version of Peter Pan used J. M. Barrie's dialogue. Even the musical Show Boat, which is greatly different from the Edna Ferber novel from which it was adapted, uses some of Ferber's original dialogue, notably during the miscegenation scene. And Lionel Bart's Oliver! uses chunks of dialogue from Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist, although it bills itself as a 'free adaptation' of the novel.

Language and translation[edit]

As the originating language of opera, Italian dominated that genre in Europe (except in France) well through the 18th century, and even into the next century in Russia, for example, when the Italian opera troupe in Saint Petersburg was challenged by the emerging native Russian repertory. Significant exceptions before 1800 can be found in Purcell's works, German opera of Hamburg during the Baroque, ballad opera and Singspiel of the 18th century, etc.

Just as with literature and song, the libretto has its share of problems and challenges with translation. In the past (and even today), foreign musical stage works with spoken dialogue, especially comedies, were sometimes performed with the sung portions in the original language and the spoken dialogue in the vernacular. The effects of leaving lyrics untranslated depend on the piece.

Many musicals, such as the old Betty Grable – Don Ameche – Carmen Miranda vehicles, are largely unaffected, but this practice is especially misleading in translations of musicals like Show Boat, The Wizard of Oz, My Fair Lady or Carousel, in which the lyrics to the songs and the spoken text are often or always closely integrated, and the lyrics serve to further the plot.^{[citation needed]} Availability of printed or projected translations today makes singing in the original language more practical, although one cannot discount the desire to hear a sung drama in one's own language.

The Spanish words libretista (playwright, script writer or screenwriter) and libreto (script or screen play), which are used in the Hispanic TV and cinema industry, derived their meanings from the original operatic sense.

Musical Libretto

Status of librettists and the libretto[edit]

Musical Librettos Online

Librettists have historically received less prominent credit than the composer. In some 17th-century operas still being performed, the name of the librettist was not even recorded. As the printing of libretti for sale at performances became more common, these records often survive better than music left in manuscript. But even in late 18th century London, reviews rarely mentioned the name of the librettist, as Lorenzo Da Ponte lamented in his memoirs.

By the 20th century some librettists became recognised as part of famous collaborations, as with Gilbert and Sullivan or Rodgers and Hammerstein. Today the composer (past or present) of the musical score to an opera or operetta is usually given top billing for the completed work, and the writer of the lyrics relegated to second place or a mere footnote, a notable exception being Gertrude Stein, who received top billing for Four Saints in Three Acts. Another exception was Alberto Franchetti's 1906 opera La figlia di Iorio which was a close rendering of a highly successful play by its librettist, Gabriele D'Annunzio, a celebrated Italian poet, novelist and dramatist of the day. In some cases, the operatic adaptation has become more famous than the literary text on which it was based, as with Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande after a play by Maurice Maeterlinck.

The question of which is more important in opera – the music or the words – has been debated over time, and forms the basis of at least two operas, Richard Strauss's Capriccio and Antonio Salieri's Prima la musica e poi le parole.

Publication of libretti[edit]

Libretti have been made available in several formats, some more nearly complete than others. The text – i.e., the spoken dialogue, song lyrics and stage directions, as applicable – is commonly published separately from the music (such a booklet is usually included with sound recordings of most operas). Sometimes (particularly for operas in the public domain) this format is supplemented with melodic excerpts of musical notation for important numbers.

Printed scores for operas naturally contain the entire libretto, although there can exist significant differences between the score and the separately printed text. More often than not, this involves the extra repetition of words or phrases from the libretto in the actual score. For example, in the aria 'Nessun dorma' from Puccini's Turandot, the final lines in the libretto are 'Tramontate, stelle! All'alba, vincerò!' (Fade, you stars! At dawn, I will win!). However, in the score they are sung as 'Tramontate, stelle! Tramontate, stelle! All'alba, vincerò! Vincerò! Vincerò!'

Because the modern musical tends to be published in two separate but intersecting formats (i.e., the book and lyrics, with all the words, and the piano-vocal score, with all the musical material, including some spoken cues), both are needed in order to make a thorough reading of an entire show.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Notes

Sources

• Smith, Marian Elizabeth (2000). Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle. Princeton University Press. ISBN9780691049946.

Further reading[edit]

• Kennedy, Michael (2006), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 985 pages, ISBN0-19-861459-4
• MacNutt, Richard (1992), 'Libretto' in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London) ISBN0-333-73432-7
• Neville, Don (1990). Frontier Research in Opera and Multimedia Preservation: a Project Involving the Documentation and Full Text Retrieval of the Libretti of Pietro Metastasio. London: Faculty of Music, University of Western Ontario. Without ISBN
• Portinari, Folco (1981). Pari siamo! Io la lingua, egli ha il pugnale. Storia del melodramma ottocentesco attraverso i suoi libretti. Torino: E.D.T. Edizioni. ISBN88-7063-017-X.
• Smith, Patrick J. The Tenth Muse: a Historical Study of the Opera Libretto. First ed. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1970. xxii, 417, xvi p. + [16] p. of b&w ill. Without ISBN or SBN
• Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 782 pages, ISBN0-19-869164-5

External links[edit]

• OperaGlass Opera Index Selected operas with corresponding libretti
• OperaFolio.com Index of over 1000 opera libretti
• opera-guide.ch, opera libretti in German translation and their original languages
• Selected opera libretti at Naxos
• Либретто во сне и наяву (Libretto in dream and in reality), holding Russian and some Western libretti (in the Russian language, as Microsoft Word files), notably: Libretti of classic Russian operas (in Russian)

How Musicals are Made

How To Write a Musical

by John Kenrick

Copyright 2000 (Revised 2020)

The Bad News

Have you noticed that almost all the books on how to write musicals are written by teachers, not by working professionals? Real writers,composers and lyricists rarely try to explain how they create, because everyone's creative process is unique – what works for any of them may not work for anyone else. Teachers can offer theory and analysis, but they cannot tell you how to becomew the next Stephen Schwartz. So the bad news is that no one can tell you how to write a musical! No one can give you a viable method, formula or road map to create a musical.

To see how intensely personal the creative process is, compare the approachesused by four great lyricist-librettists –

• William S. Gilbert wrote all his drafts in expensive leather-bound journals, saving every idea and deleted line for possible use in the future. These meticulous notebooks are still preserved, providing a goldmine for researchers. Gilbert always wrote a complete version of the book and lyrics for a new comic opera before submitting anything to composer Arthur Sullivan -- then, as Sullivan composed, Gilbert would make revisions as needed. Rehearsals led to more revisions, and the material might even be edited or re-written after opening night based on the reaction of audiences.
• When lyricist Larry Hart worked with composer Richard Rodgers, they would talk through a potential project (frequently collaborating with a co-librettist, such as Herb Fields), deciding where the songs would go, which characters would sing them, and what each song could do to develop the characters & plot. Then Hart usually waited for Rodgers to compose the melodies. Hart would listen to a new tune once or twice, then dash off the lyrics with amazing speed, scrawling on any available scrap of paper -- sometimes just filling the spare space in a magazine ad. The libretto would be rewritten through the final weeks of rehearsal, and was subject to major revisions right up to its opening night on Broadway.
• Oscar Hammerstein II also worked with Rodgers, but in their collaborationsthe book and lyrics were usually written first. After the two men discussed the dramaticintention of a potential song, Hammerstein retreated to hisPennsylvania farm, where he curled into a chair and labored over every lyric for days orweeks at a time, neatly organizing his ideas on legal pads, then typing themout himself. While the first drafts of scripts were finished long before the first rehearsal, they were subject to extensive revision during pre-Broadway tryouts.
• Alan Jay Lerner's habit of flying halfway around the world to avoid writing commitments frequently left his collaborators in a frustrating state of limbo, sometimes for months on end. Lerner was so crippled by nerves that he wore white cotton gloves to avoid chewing his fingers raw while working on a new project. The books and lyrics for his musicals were usually completed during high-pressure tryouts, adding tremendous tension to the process. (After creating My Fair Lady, Lerner had a recurring nightmare about a group of friends coming into a hotel room to ask what he had written after several days locked inside. Surrounded by mounds of crumpled pages, Lerner dreamt he would hold up a sheet and read, 'Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly' – whereupon his friends would cart him off to an asylum.)

Each of these men had their share of hits and flops, so it is impossible to define any method as right or wrong. Each writer,composer or collaborative team must figure out (usually by trial and error) whatworks best for them. The point is that they go through the hell ofcreating – no matter how uncomfortable or terrifying that hell might be.

Compelling Need

If you are going to write a musical, you are setting out to offer an audience astory. What makes a musical compelling, what commands audience interest?Music? Oh please! A musical must have characters who need or want something desperately, and that need comes up against an equally powerful obstacle. The resulting conflict forces these characters to give their all, risk everything – and this is why audiences feel compelled to see how these storiesturn out. All successful book musicals involve characters who have something orsomeone they are willing to put everything on the line for. Some examples –

• Rent offers a small army of characters who are willing to facemiserable poverty in pursuit of their creative dreams.
• In Guys and Dolls, each major character is eventually willing to radically redefine their life in order to marry the person they love.
• Sweeney Todd will stop at nothing to kill thosewho sent him to prison on a trumped-up charge. Audiences are fascinated to see Todd's need for revenge consume everything he once loved.
• Singin' In the Rain has movie star Don Lockwood simultaneouslytrying to save his screen career and win the love of Kathy Seldin, the girl he loves.
• In Wicked, gifted witch Elphaba is willing to abandon her dreams of respectable success in order to stand up for what she believes to be right.

How do you know if your story is compelling? Well, how compelled are you totell it? Do you care so deeply that you must tell this story or die? Believe it or not, that's a very good sign. It isimpossible to know in advance what critics and audiences will applaud for --all the greatest talents have miscalculated at one time or another. Your bestbet is always to go with material you care about deeply, a story and charactersthat you believe in.

Moss Hart once toldAlan Jay Lerner that nobody knows the secret to writing a hit musical . . .but thesecret to writing a flop is 'to say yes when you mean no.'

Those may be the truest words ever spoken about musicals! If every fiber of your being says 'yes' to a potential project,it improves the odds that others will care about it too. If any part of you screams 'no,' listen and act accordingly.

What's It Really About?

When Jerome Robbins agreed to direct the original Fiddler On The Roof, he askedthe authors a crucial question: 'What is your show about?' Theyanswered that it was about a Russian Jewish milkman and his family, and Robbins told them tothink again. He wanted to know what the show was really about at its emotional core– what was the main internal force that would drive the action and touch audiences bothintellectually and emotionally? (Academics call this core the premise of a story.) After weeks of deliberation, the authors realized that the show was really about theimportance of family and tradition, and about what happens when a way of life faces extinction. This not only gave them the idea for a magnificent opening number ('Tradition') – it also gave what could have been a very parochial show irresistible universal appeal. This is why the fable of Tevya the Russian-Jewish milkman has moved audiences all over the world.

When writing a musical, you must figure out your premise, what your show is really about at its core. Once you define your premise, make sure that everything serves that premise – every character, every scene, every line, everysong. Anything that does not serve the premise is extraneous and must becut. Ruthlessly. That is essential to building a reallygood show.

A good premise gives your musical project wide ranging appeal. This does not mean you should limityourself to common characters facing common challenges – far from it! Forexample, Sweeney Todd tells the story of a barber in Victorian London out to killthe vile men who stole his beloved wife and sent him to rot in prison onfalse charges. But at its core, the show is really about the terrifying cost ofrevenge, how hatred and resentment can destroy our past, our present and evenour future. This premise makes Sweeney's story the audience's story.

Even a revue can have a premise. When Pig's Fly was a set ofhilarious songs and skits involved one gay man's obsession with succeedingin the theatre -- despite everyone warning that he would succeedonly 'when pig's fly.' But the show's deeper premise was that the moreoutrageous or 'over the top' a dream is, the more it is worthpursuing. That theme resonated with gays and straights alike, and When Pig'sFly enjoyed a long and profitable off-Broadway run.

Things to Keep in Mind

Consider these key questions posed by the original producer of 1776 and Pippin --

'The greatest question musical dramatists must answer is: does the story I am telling sing? Is the subject sufficiently off the ground to compel the emotion of bursting into song? Will a song add a deeper understanding of character or situation?'
- Stuart Ostrow, A Producer's Broadway Journey. (Praeger: Westport, CT. 1999), p. 96.

If all songwriters and librettists answered those questions diligently,audiences would be spared innumerable hours of boredom. Dissect theworst musical you have ever seen (I am serious about this; pick one you really hate), and odds are you will find that the story does not really 'sing,' does not call forcharacters to burst into song.

In the course of my production career on and off Broadway, I have worked with dozens of songwriters and librettists,from gifted unknowns to Tony and Academy Award winners. Based on that experience, there are several things I would recommend if you want to write musicals –

• See as many musicals as you can, stage, screen, web livestream, wherever.
• Study the musicals you like and figure out what makes them tick.
• Study the musicals you don't like and figure outwhat prevents them from ticking. You can learn a lot by studying a flop -- at the very least, flops are practical lessons in what not to do.
• Since musicals are a collaborative art form, find collaborators you can work with comfortably.
• Find or invent a story idea that gets you so excited you can spend five or more years of your life working on it whether or not it earns you a penny.
• Structure your life in a way that leaves you daily time to write and/or compose -- even if its just while sitting on public transportation.
• Be sure that life structure provides a way for you to keep the bills paid.
• Work only on projects you are passionate about – never take on a musical based solely on its commercial possibilities. This year's 'hot' idea often proves to be next year's old hat.
• Make sure your work has a genuine sense of humor. Too many new writers and composers concoct relentlessly 'serious' musicals that bore audiences.
• Don't waste time fearing failure – every creative talent in history has turned out the occasional clunker. And every great musical had started as a clunky first draft. (I always spend far more time revising my books than I spend on the first full drafts.) It takes determined effort and revision to bring out the best in any project. If you treat every musical you work on as a learning experience, I can make you a promise; you will find that even a 'failed' scene or song can be a very creative place.

Nine Rules For Writing Musicals

While no one can tell you how to write a musical, there area few basic rules that may help aspiring authors and composers. But don't take my word on any of them -- prove themyourself. The first four rules apply to good writing of any kind –

1. Show, Don't Tell – This is job one for all writers, now and forever. Don't tell us what your characters are – let their actions showus! Drama is expressed in action, not description. No one has to tell us thatSeymour in Little Shop of Horrors is a gullible nerd; everything he does screams it. Peggy Sawyer never has to declare that she isa naive newcomer to 42nd Street's hard-edged world of show business --her wide-eyed behavior makes that clear from her first entrance.

Theater and film are visual as well as literary mediums,so musicals are not limited to words and music. Many great musicals use the power of visual images to communicate key information. (We call them 'shows,'no?) The waiters in Hello Dolly never have to tell us that they loveDolly – their visible reaction to her presence shows it all. And no one in My Fair Lady has to announce when Liza Doolittle becomes a lady – her wordless, elegant descent down the stairs before leaving for the EmbassyBall shows that the transformation has occurred.

2. Cut everything that is not essential – Some call this the 'kill your darlings' rule. Every character, song, word and gesture has to serve a definite dramatic purpose. If something does not develop character, establish setting or advance the plot, you must cut it -- even if it is a moment that you love. The next time you see a musical that seems to lose steam, odds are that the writers did not have the heart to cut non-essential material. I beg you to never show your audiences such a lack of respect. Ruthlessly cut everything that does not serve a definite and vital purpose to your premise.

3. Study and practice the basics of good storytelling – Musicals are just anotherform of telling stories, something humans have been doing since the inventionof speech. Can you tell me what your show is really about (the premise),and define the essential dramatic purpose of each character? And doesevery scene offer a character with deep desire confronting a powerfulobstacle?

Learning the art of storytelling does not require a masters degree: the basic tools are already in you. Reading a few good books can get you thinking in the right direction. For starters,Jerry Cleaver's ImmediateFiction: A Complete Writing Course (NY: St. Martin's Griffin, 2002) will openyour eyes to the unseen elements that make a great story absorbing, and a greatstory is the ideal starting point for any book musical. To go deeper,read Robert Olen Butler's From Where You Dream: The Process of WritingFiction (NY: Grove Press, 2005). Both of these books can save you years of misguided effort.

On the specific subject of writing original musicals, MakingMusicals (NY: Limelight Editions, 1998) by Tom Jones is the only bookon the subject written by a bona fide creator of musical hits (TheFantasticks, etc.). He offers no magic formulas, but his gentle wisdomcan enrich anyone facing the creative process.

4. NEVER teach or preach. Your first job is to tell a compelling story. If you make intelligent points along the way, that's fantastic, but it won't matter much if your audience loses interest, or simply never shows up. Dance a Little Closer condemned war and homophobia, and closed on its opening night. On the other hand, Hairspray skewered bigotry and ran for years. And while some critics dismiss The Sound of Music as fluff, ithas probably done more to combat the ongoing threat of Fascism than all the World War II documentaries ever made.

If you want to preach, build a pulpit. Put your story and characters first. A well-told story lives in the memory long afterany sermon or lecture. When you are really lucky, the one who will learn from your writing is you.

Now, some rules that apply exclusively to musicals –

5. Find the Song Placements ASAP - Song placement in a musical is not arbitrary. Irving Berlin said that he evaluated potential projects by looking for the 'posts' – points in the story that demand a song. Call thesekey moments whatever you like, but they are the places where charactershave an emotional justification for singing. Think about your favoritemusical; the songs all have something to say, expressing important feelings or concernsof the characters. Joy, confusion, heartbreak, love, rage – where these life-defining feelings break through, characters can sing.

6. Open With a Kick-Ass Song – Every now and then, a successful musical (My Fair Lady, The King and I) opens with a few pages of dialogue before the opening number, but even then the first songs in both are crucial. The quickest way totouch an audience is through song. An effective number or musicalscene sets the tone for everything that follows and also allows swift plot exposition & characterdevelopment.

By the end of the opening number, audiences should know where the story is set, what sort of people are in it, and what the basic tone of the show (comic, satiric, serious, etc.) will be. This is why the opening number ought to be one of the strongest in the score. A great opening number reassures audiences that there more good things to come. Ragtime's title song handily introduces audiences to an army of characters and the distant era theylived in. Other examples: Oklahoma ('Oh, What a BeautifulMorning'), Les Miserables ('At the End of the Day'), Urinetown ('Too Much Exposition', and Hairspray('Good Morning, Baltimore').

7. Every Element Must Speak as One – In contemporary musical theater, the score, libretto and staging (both direction and choreography) all share the job of storytelling. Characters should move seamlessly between spoken word, dance and song. Think of the hilarious 'Keep It Gay' scene in The Producers, the achingly beautiful 'If I Loved You' bench scene in Carousel, or the powerful'Dance at the Gym' in West Side Story – the dialogue, lyrics andstaging form a single fabric. The trick is to keep the content smooth andvaried. A hint – if your libretto goes on for pages and pages between isolated musical numbers, something is probably going wrong. And if your scorehas a stretch of ballad after ballad, vary thetone. In other words, lighten up!

8. Songs Are Not Enough – When you turn an existing story into amusical, you need a fresh vision. Just adding songs to an existing play won't give you an effectivemusical. You have to tell the story with a fresh dose of energy, ofre-inspiration. Annie took the characters from a classic comic strip, added some new faces and placed them all in an entirely new story. Some ofthe best moments in My Fair Lady did not come from Shaw's Pygmalion -- including the pivotal 'Rain in Spain' scene. The addition of songs must re-ignite the original material.

9. Sing It or Say It; Never Both – Rouben Mamoulian, the original director of Porgy& Bess, Oklahoma & Carousel put it this way: 'It's the basiclaw that the music and dancing must extend the dialogue. If you say the samething in a song you already have said in the speeches, it's without point. . . asong must lift the spoken scene to greater heights than it was before, or the song must be cut no matter how beautiful the melody. The song must not merelyrepeat in musical terms what has already been put across by the dialogue andactions.' (Maurice Zoltow, NY Times, 1/29/1950, 'Mamoulian Directs aMusical,' section 2, p.1)

Why You SHOULD NOT Write A Musical

Yes, I mean you. Can you stand the merciless judgment of producers, potential backers, fellow creators, press critics, anonymous internet chatroom snipers, and (gulp!) paying audiences? Can you handle years (and I mean years) of anonymous, unpaid struggle? Are you ready to work your butt off eight hours or more at ademanding day job and then somehow find the energy to write on the side? Can you handle the fact that most people will have no idea who you are or what you do even if you win a Tony or an Oscar?

Finally, can you handle doing all this for no more than 2% of a show's profits? (That's the percentage the authors share under the presentstandard contract; so if you collaborate, you only get a piece of that!) This is not a career for the dilettante.

'This is a tough business, a cruel business. The competition, especially in New York and especially in the musical theatre, is fierce. Not without reason is there the saying: 'It is not enough that I succeed, my friends have also to fail.' There is a tendency after you have been in the rat race for a while to open the Times and slowly relish the roasting given to some competitor,possibly even to some friend.'
- Tom Jones, Making Musicals: An Informal Introduction to the World of Musical Theatre(New York: Limelight Editions, 1998), pp. 188.

Why You SHOULD Write A Musical

You should write musicals only if there is no possible way for you not to. If all the negatives cannot dissuade you, go for it! You might be crazy enough to succeed in this snake pit. Just be sure that you always have a solid means of paying your billsand recharging your spirits. And while talent and luck are valuable to any aspiring composer, lyricist or librettist, there are three things that matter evenmore – patience, determination, and guts. One of the world's greatestmusical comediennes said the following about acting in an interview, but it applies to writersand composers too –

'I'll give you a tip – it's risk. Once you're willing to risk everything, you can accomplish anything.'
- Patricia Routledge, Tony-winning actress

There are as many ways to write a musical as there are musicals. If you do decide to venture forth into this daunting field, know that my best wishes – and the best wishes ofmillions of ticket-buying theatre lovers hungering for something new andwonderful – will go with you. Good luck -- you are going to need tons of it.

Next: How to Get Your Musical Produced