I realise I haven't been terribly precise about dates. I'm often imprecise, so email me if anything confuses you.
The Librettists Workshop will run on Mondays from 7 March through 18 July, from 6 - 8 p.m. at Nitro. We will not meet on Easter Monday. Whether we meet on the two May bank holidays will be a group decision. Therefore, the term will be either 17 or 19 sessions.
The Composer/ Lyricist Workshop will run on Mondays from 4 Apr through 18 July, from 3:30 - 5:30 p.n. at Nitro. We will not meet on Easter Monday, but will meet on the two May bank holiday Mondays. Therefore, the term will run for 15 sessions.
The autumn terms for both will run from 5 Sept through 12 Dec for 15 sessions, so we will all be in sync.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
'The Last Five Years'
'The Last Five Years', Jason Robert Brown's two-hander follow-up to 'Parade' is playing at the Tabard Theatre through 5 March. An interesting piece worth looking at.
Spider-Man
Richard Voyce from the Librettists Workshop sent this along. When will they ever pay attention?
The Chicago Tribune: “The much-told woes of ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’ boil down to a problem that has similarly ensnared far humbler new musicals: an incoherent story. For without a book with consistent rules that a mainstream audience can follow and track, without characters in whom one can invest emotionally, without a sense of the empowering optimism that should come from time spent in the presence of a good, kind man who can walk up buildings and save our lousy world from evil, it is all just clatter and chatter.”
The Chicago Tribune: “The much-told woes of ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’ boil down to a problem that has similarly ensnared far humbler new musicals: an incoherent story. For without a book with consistent rules that a mainstream audience can follow and track, without characters in whom one can invest emotionally, without a sense of the empowering optimism that should come from time spent in the presence of a good, kind man who can walk up buildings and save our lousy world from evil, it is all just clatter and chatter.”
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Directors and choreographers
Christine organised a meeting-up of mid-level writers the other night at Nitro, and one of the things we talked about was when and if to have a director involved in the development process. There were various opinions. One serious concern, though, is how few directors are out there who are specialists specifically in musical theatre who you might trust to help in development, if you should so wish.
Every morning, I walk by the Urdang on my way to the studio, and see all those kids sweating in class. There are any number of very fine performance and drama schools turning out trained talent; but, to my knowledge, none of them have a specific module for training directors or choreographers to work on musicals? How short-sighted is that?
I know of a couple recent productions where the choreographer came from Frantic Assembly, a company whose work I admire and enjoy enormously. And the choreographer for the upcoming 'Ghost' has come out of music videos. But both of these are entirely different skills from developing a number that is going to tell a story, as part of a bigger story,with a theatre dance vocabulary, and then being able to set it on a group of trained dancers as part of a musical.
Last autumn, I was at the Bush, talking with a producer there, raising this question, and she said 'Well, directors always learn by assisting other directors'. For drama, that is perfectly true and it has worked well for many years (in conjunction with the drama schools that have a 'Directing' module or degree). But how often is there an opportunity for an aspiring practitioner to work with someone of the level of Jerry Mitchell or Matthew Warchus, to really learn craft?
What don't they get? Musicals are different!
SOME school mush be coerced into addressing this. Hmmmmmm.
Every morning, I walk by the Urdang on my way to the studio, and see all those kids sweating in class. There are any number of very fine performance and drama schools turning out trained talent; but, to my knowledge, none of them have a specific module for training directors or choreographers to work on musicals? How short-sighted is that?
I know of a couple recent productions where the choreographer came from Frantic Assembly, a company whose work I admire and enjoy enormously. And the choreographer for the upcoming 'Ghost' has come out of music videos. But both of these are entirely different skills from developing a number that is going to tell a story, as part of a bigger story,with a theatre dance vocabulary, and then being able to set it on a group of trained dancers as part of a musical.
Last autumn, I was at the Bush, talking with a producer there, raising this question, and she said 'Well, directors always learn by assisting other directors'. For drama, that is perfectly true and it has worked well for many years (in conjunction with the drama schools that have a 'Directing' module or degree). But how often is there an opportunity for an aspiring practitioner to work with someone of the level of Jerry Mitchell or Matthew Warchus, to really learn craft?
What don't they get? Musicals are different!
SOME school mush be coerced into addressing this. Hmmmmmm.
Application deadlines
The deadline for applying for the librettists workshop is Friday, 25 Feb. For the Composer/ lyricist workshop, the deadline is Friday, 11 Mar.
C/L Workshop
Tim, David F, Steve, Christine and I had our first meeting last week to begin developing the programme for the workshop over the course of the year. It was great to do group-think about what different types of theatre songs can do (much discussion about what is a charm song and what it's function is), how they fit together to build a score, how different song structures can accomplish different things. It's going to be a productive year. The last project of the year will be collaborations between the members of the composer/ lyricist and librettist workshops to write 10 minute musicals, and there'll be another collaborative project before that.
Monday, 7 February 2011
More in appreciation of craft.
I had a chat with Sarah Travis, the excellent and experienced MD of the recent MMD 'Beyond the Gate' review after a performance. Speaking of the material in that review, she said 'The numbers that are well crafted were easy to rehearse. And the others... weren't.'
Not bad advice
You've all heard me stress the importance of structure in libretto development. In the obituary of mystery novelist Diana Norman in the Guardian on 5 Feb, they quote her:
'I always plot first. If you're writing thrillers which, of all the genres, have to be well constructed and not streams of consciousness, you've got to know where you're going. I have the last line of the book in my head before I sit down to write and I stagger towards it like a drunk navigating furniture to get to the far side of the room.'
'I always plot first. If you're writing thrillers which, of all the genres, have to be well constructed and not streams of consciousness, you've got to know where you're going. I have the last line of the book in my head before I sit down to write and I stagger towards it like a drunk navigating furniture to get to the far side of the room.'
Guys and Dolls
Central School of Speech and Drama is presenting Guys and Dolls, 7 thru 12 March. Mon-Sat at 7:30 and Fri and Sat at 2:30.
An opportunity to see one of the greatest of classics, both well crafted and hilarious. An example for all of us. Try to go!
Bookings: 020 7722 8183 or email: boxoffice@cssd.ac.uk
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