Here we are. Back together again, talking about musical theatre… Last time, if you remember, we took a look at what makes a well written song cycle – a fun little animal of a musical piece that’s assembled with only music and lyrics. But now, I’d like to explore something different: the book musical. More […]
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Have you ever listened to a song over and over again because there was one line you just couldn’t quite hear? It’s happened to me more than once. Sometimes, it only takes a day or two of listening before I make out the words, but sometimes it takes a lot longer. I loved John Bucchino’s […]
The post Lyric Lens: “That Smile” by John Bucchino appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
At a completely fundamental level, there are two kinds of participants in art: there are the artists, and there are the observers. Artists have the gift of intention, the ability to say what they want in the way that they want, for reasons clear to them. The observers also have a gift, and that is the […]
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I’ll keep the formal introduction brief… Hello. My name is Jamie. You can read more about me here. This post is the first in a series which I’m writing for the Green Room blog over the coming months entitled ‘Across the Pond,’ which aims to discuss the landscape of contemporary musical theatre in the UK. […]
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With musicals, there’s an old (and false) belief that they are impossibly cheerful, unrealistic, and frivolous. We all love a screwball comedy meant purely for entertainment, but it takes a specific and deliberate choice to write a show that fits perfectly into a certain genre, and most shows do not. What do I mean by […]
The post Genre and Musical Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
If you were a musical theatre writer or a songwriter in the 1910s, you would travel to 28th Street between 6th Avenue and Broadway to sell your music at Tin Pan Alley. You would walk in with a finished song and hopefully walk out with some exposure (and maybe a profit). During the 1960s and 1970s, musical […]
The post Self-Promotion: An Artform and an Epidemic appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Rob Hartmann here — composer/lyricist/bookwriter, theatre journalist and critic, and professor (at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.) In my last series of posts, I had a number of conversations with people involved in developing new musical theatre on a professional level — directors, producers, choreographers, actors and so on. Next, I’ll be digging a […]
The post New Musical Theatre and the BFA: Creating Musical Theatre’s Future appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
A few years ago I had a ticket to attend a panel discussion with Stephen Schwartz and a couple of German ‘musical theatre experts’ in Berlin. I had the flu and wasn’t feeling all that well, but I went anyway – because, well: Stephen Schwartz. The space where the discussion was held was the set of […]
The post How We Do It in Germany – an Introduction appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Hello there, fellow lovers (and writers, and producers, and attendees) of musical theatre! Greetings from the City of Broad Shoulders. It is my mission, in blogging for NMT, to bring a little Chicago flavor to the national (international?) discussion of the art form we love. A brief introduction: I’m the co-founder of a Chicago company […]
The post Second City, First Post appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In many creative aspects we are taught from a young age that versatility is key to success. Actors and performers spend half of their life worrying about finding their niche, and later worry about being typecast and stuck in a particular casting bracket. There is great debate to be had in this topic – some […]
The post Versatility – the key to success for musical theatre composers? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
A book is overrated in a musical… Now anyone who knows me (Nick Luckenbaugh, one of your new NMT bloggers) knows that I don’t think that’s true. In fact, I don’t think enough emphasis is put on a musical’s book these days. But… today I want to talk about something for which no book exists: […]
The post What Makes a Song Cycle Tick? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Bringing a new musical to the stage for the first time is quite a bit like launching a rocket into space for the first time. You plan, you research, you work, you create, you revise, you wait…and on and on for a period of (usually) years. But when you finally get the rocket on the […]
The post Rehearsals – Dog and Pony: Part 3 appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
On April 21st 2014, the New York musical theatre community saw an unprecedented event take place at the Dramatist Guild offices. Veteran, established, and aspiring musical theatre writers came together in one room with the hopes of making a large dent in the world of sheet music piracy. The phenomenal roster of composers and lyricists that […]
The post I Support Songwriters – The New Frontier for Anti-Piracy Activism appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Welcome back to Lyric Lens! For the first edition back after a bit of a hiatus, I’ll be looking at a song called “52,” by Joe Iconis. This song is not yet for sale online, though a bunch of Joe’s other songs are, and hey, I can still hold out hope for the future. After […]
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I’ve never been in a musical… unless you count my 8th grade stint in Teens in Tinseltown (it’s real, look it up). I grew up playing guitar and listening to rock, pop, folk, soul, and jazz. Don’t get me wrong, I saw a good number of shows and listened to the Rent cast album 5-bajllion […]
The post Zoe’s Mix appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Please climb aboard the nearest time machine and travel back to April 29, 1962. When you arrive, you find out that you’re throwing a dinner party for prominent musical theater composers of the day. It’s your job to assemble the guest list. Who will you invite? Well, you’re in for a great party. The […]
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