This final installment of “Finishing the Hat” is personal. I met Rachel Dean a few years ago when we wrote our first song together and have been enamored of her ever since. This series has been a joy in my life, and being able to give NMT readers a glimpse into the processes of a […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “Monsters In My Closet” – A Conversation with Rachel Dean appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I often hear the argument that too much new musical theatre sounds the same: the same chord structure – the same lyrics of longing – without a nod to the songwriters who have come before. I have enough arguments to the contrary to fill 10 TED talks, but for the sake of this series, you […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “The Ocean” – A Conversation with Rachel Griffin appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Of all the discussion about the writing of musicals – the “to-do”s and “to-don’t”s, what IS and what ISN’T musical theatre, what rhymes and what doesn’t – it’s good to get back to basics: musical theatre is first and foremost about storytelling. A great musical has a story ARC, but each individual song should reveal […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “Vietnam” – A Conversation with Alexander Sage Oyen appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Georgia Stitt is superwoman. Not only is she among the most honest writers working today, she wears more hats in one year than most of us do in a lifetime. There are two simple reasons. First, Ms. Stitt is smart and incredibly gifted. That combination has yielded much-lauded projects like The Water, Big Red Sun, and […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “My Lifelong Love” – A Conversation with Georgia Stitt appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Modern musical theatre has become a master class in honest dialogue – and what a welcome and amazing thing that is. When I first heard the songs of Kerrigan-Lowdermilk many years ago, that is what struck me most – the honesty. Kerrigan’s lyrical prowess lies in her ability to balance honest awkwardness with poetic metaphor. […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “Anyway” – A Conversation with Kait Kerrigan appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Sweeping romantic epics have been a part of the American musical theater pantheon since its inception. Show Boat may have launched that ship (pun very much intended), and since then they’ve come to be defined by Les Miserables. Rarely can a writer create epic works like Les Miz and also intimate musicals with equal sweep […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “The Secret of Happiness” – A Conversation with Paul Gordon appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
All of the great lyricists have said (in one way or another) that lyric writing is about concision and character. When those two things collide, musical moments achieve an organic level that can only breed honesty. Lyrics where not one word is wasted are amazing to behold. Drew Gasparini represents a rare form of honesty […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “Kindergarten Love Song” – A Conversation with Drew Gasparini appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Note from David: For Fall 2015, I am launching a new series taking a specific look at the craft of lyric writing. As a librettist and lyricist myself, this is a particular passion for me and I wanted to explore what went into the new musical theatre lyrics that we all know and love. So […]
The post FINISHING THE HAT: “Just Not Now” – A Conversation with Lyricist Ryan Cunningham appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
