I’ve never done the experiment, but I wonder what would happen if you filled a room with theater professionals – writers, actors, designers, producers, etc., and asked them each to list songs currently in the Top 40. What would the median number of right answers would be? Ten? Five? Two? (If you want to try this yourself, you can […]
The post Reasons to Steal Your 15-Year-Old Niece’s iPod appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but in the past however-many years or so, there’s been a trend toward movies being turned into musicals. Oh, you have noticed that? Yeah, me too. But I’m not going to go on a rant about how this trend spells the end of musical theatre as we know it. It […]
The post Ready, Set…BAKE! appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
To anyone, but mostly, the “me”s, I am a white, cisgender, gay man, writing musical theatre in New York City, and I am not uncommon. The amount of “me”s I see writing and performing and garnering awards and taking new jobs and making names for themselves is staggering. The inherent male/white/and yes, even in this case, gay […]
The post Being Aware appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I love an epic six minute story song as much as anybody, but there’s something undeniably satisfying about the occasional little gem that packs a huge punch and then is gone before you quite know what hit you. Doris Humphrey said that “every dance is too long,” and while I wouldn’t go that far with songs, sometimes less […]
The post A Little Post About Little Songs appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
We’ve all dreamed about that one moment that changes everything. Audra McDonald hears you sing karaoke at your mutual friend’s birthday party and asks if you’d be interested in singing a duet with her on her next album. Or you send a draft of your latest show to one of your former professors, who thinks […]
The post Be Prepared appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I love “I Dreamed a Dream.” I have an embarrassing number of versions of it in my iTunes. I mentioned it in my first blog post. It’s a bit of a problem. Call the lyrics cliché, call the orchestration overwrought, but somehow it just sort of works. Now that we have that out of the way (did I […]
The post I Dreamed a Dream: Of Good Vowels On High Notes appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Let me take a moment to say how excited I am for the return of the musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 this season, this time pitching their tent closer to Times Square in the empty lot by 45th and 8th Ave. The thing about this show I find incredibly thoughtful is that it […]
The post Bits and Pieces appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
If you’re a hardcore musical theatre fan – and let’s be honest, you probably are if you’re on this site – you’re familiar with the term “trunk song.” On the off-chance that you stumbled onto this blog thinking I’m one of the writers and producers of Sex and the City – I’m not, by the way – I’ll […]
The post Baby, Bathwater or Both? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
When Vital Theater Company approached me in the summer of 2009 to write the score for their children’s musical UNCLE PIRATE, I half-heartedly said yes. They were in a pinch, having just lost their songwriter, I was free, and the director was a good friend. I don’t have children. I didn’t even know much about them, but I figured I’d […]
The post Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing Children’s Theater appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Hello theater geeks, performers, fellow writers, and parents of the theater geeks, performers, and writers who are reading these blogs as to further understand why their child is “the way they are.” Today I wanted to tackle a subject that comes as an occupational hazard… writer’s block. This blog may seem to be catered to strictly composers and writers, […]
The post Drew Gasparini’s Guide To Saying “F*** You” To Writer’s Block appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Every time I have performed an evening of my music, I am inevitably asked the same questions: “What is that from?” “Why did you write that song?” “What did you write first, the music or the lyrics?” “What’s your bank account number?” Well, the last one only happened once…… But the point is…people ask questions. So, it […]
The post THE WRITER’S BLOCK: More Than Just Sundays appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
There’s an old theater adage that “no one leaves humming the set.” I contend it’s equally true that “no one leaves humming the syncopated, accidental-filled, sixteenth-note-y vamp.” As more new musical theater is being written by amazingly talented, expert pianists (who are often non-singers), increasing attention is being paid to the accompaniment figure, which is being written first, at […]
The post Melody Matters appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Can I tell you a Story? In an ideal world, that question is what I use to maintain my laser-like focus every moment of the ten hours each day as I write a great piece of new musical theatre. In reality, it’s a bit more like: What kind of song does this character need… Should I have […]
The post My Writing Process appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Truman Capote would have a pen in one hand and a glass of Brandy in another. Hemingway would limit himself to 500 words a day, only writing in the morning. Sondheim likes to be lying down on his back so he can easily doze off, and he only uses Blackwing pencils. Writers’ rituals become part of our personalities […]
The post Ritual in Writing appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Songs in musicals are written for all kinds of reasons. But often, their indispensability to a show has to do with fulfilling several functions at once. In the case of “The Twitter Song” from Nobody Loves You, my show with Itamar Moses about a philosophy student who becomes a contestant on a Bachelor-style dating show, […]
The post WRITER’S WORKSHOP: How a song for a musical gets written appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I’ve got this duality to my career that has provided me with some pretty helpful insight. I spend a big part of my professional time writing music and lyrics for songs and shows, but I also spend a big part of that time music directing, teaching, and coaching singers. One of the most important things […]
The post Writing Actable Songs appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
