Hearing the important vocal line in an ensemble
Vocal layering and complexity are great, right? But what if you really need ONE character’s vocal line to stand out above the rest? Here’s a quick look at a couple ways to accomplish that.
Using your melody line to help stress a lyric’s meaning
It’s not just the accents of the time signature which can affect the emphasis of the lyric. Words can be stressed by a change in the direction of the vocal line. Sometimes that’s exactly what you want. Other times, not so much.
more than just a metronome marking
There’s so much more you can be doing with that metronome marking. Mood, tempo, groove, emotion….Here’s a pair of tips how to get more mileage out of that white space right above the first measure.
JULY 15 SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR SEARCH FOR NEW MUSICALS
Have you written a great new musical, and are you looking for feedback and/or an opportunity for a concert reading? Don’t miss the July 15 deadline for the annual Search for New Musicals at the Academy for New Musical Theatre.
The Search for New Musicals accepts entries from around the globe; winners receive awards worth up to $25,000 in workshop productions, concert readings, feedback, and developmental support.
“We are thrilled to sponsor the Search,” says Elise Dewsberry, Artistic Director of the Academy. “We love seeing what writers are creating; and of course our mission is to nurture the folks who are writing musicals, so I’m looking forward to seeing what submissions we will get this season.”
Established in 2008, the Search for New Musicals has awarded concert readings and/or workshops to twenty promising new musicals including It Happened in Roswell by Terrence Atkins and Jeffery Lyle Segal; The Looking Glass Wars by by Kurt Kuenne, based on the novel by Frank Beddor; Infamous by Karen M. Cohen and Stephen Kingsbury; Mad Bomber by Charles Monagan and Richard de Rosa; Emerald by Chris Burgess and Denise Wright; Chapter Eleven by Stephen Telfer; Gilbert & Sullivan on Wall Street by Charles Veley; The Water by Georgia Stitt, Jeff Hylton, and Tim Werenko; Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, Jr., Chris Budinich, Diana Belkowski, Dan Tramon, and Carl Anthony Tramon; Girl Detective by Alan Gordon and Mark Sutton-Smith; Greenbrier Ghost by Susan Murray and Clay Zambo; The Next Fairy Tale by Brian Pugach; and Life After Life by Tracey Langran Corea and Thaddeus Corea.
If you’ve written a musical, and you would like some honest, constructive, detailed feedback on how to make your musical better, you can submit your musical to ANMT for dramaturgical feedback at levels from evaluation to analysis to table reading to workshop to concert reading.
The submission deadline this season is July 15, 2014. All submissions will receive either an audio Overview Evaluation ($100 submission level) or an audio/video Detailed Analysis ($400 submission level), and will also be automatically entered into the Search contest..
“I’ve never received a more cogent and useable evaluation,” wrote Search writer Elliott Baker (author of The Tooth Fairy’s Daughter). “I’m very comfortable with the critique process but I have never finished reading a critique/evaluation with as much desire and energy to go to work on and polish a piece.”
“The evaluation was far more in-depth than I expected and seemed to cover all the key aspects of the show. Frankly, I found it more helpful than a staged reading would have been,” stated Search participant Barbara Campbell (bookwriter/lyricist of The Awakening). “This critique offered me far more in-depth comments into the basic ‘nuts and bolts’ than I have ever received to date.”
British writer Michael Dresser stated “The real value of this service is in its rarity: from genuine industry professionals who have the clarity and vision to provide feedback with no bias or agenda and which asks the right questions and suggestions to enable YOU to genuinely UNDERSTAND how to make your work a better piece of musical theatre - the long term benefits of which are incalculable!”
All entries will receive constructive dramaturgical feedback, and will be entered in the Search contest. The winner of the 2014 Search will be announced by November 15, and will receive a workshop with the Academy Repertory Company, detailed feedback from the ANMT staff, and will be given a concert reading in Los Angeles.
Writers can submit their shows electronically via ANMT’s website, or submit materials by mail after completing an online submission form.
Information on submitting to the Search is available by CLICKING HERE.
Musical Theatre Summer Boot Camp
The Academy for New Musical Theatre is offering three courses this summer for musical theatre bookwriters and lyricists as part of the annual Musical Theatre Summer Boot Camp.
BEATING BROADWAY
Instructor: Scott Guy
Tues/Thur for 2 weeks; 7pm to 10pm
August 5, 7, 12, 14
Course Fee: $200 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $180)
Using Steve Cuden’s book BEATING BROADWAY, these four sessions will detail the ‘beats’ of the plot line of several successful Broadway musicals. We’ll work for two sessions examining several different approaches to musical theatre structure. By the third session, you’ll select one approach which seems promising for a musical which YOU want to write. And in the fourth session you’ll bring in a bare-bones version of an outline. The goal is to build the foundation of your story, and use Cuden’s powerful tools to increase your main character’s conflict and the emotional impact (s)he will have on your audience. You’ll want after this crash course to go back and flesh out the details of your characters and subplot, etc., but you should be able to apply Cuden’s principles not only to your outline, but to many outlines to come! (Course fee includes a free copy of the book.)
BOOK LAB
Instructor: Elise Dewsberry
Six Saturday mornings from 10am to 2pm
July 12, 26, August 2, 9, 16, 23 (note no July 19)
Course Fee: $595 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $495)
The Book Lab is designed as an introduction to writing the book of a musical while also outlining the collaborative steps involved in creating a new musical with the whole team. The book of a musical is not just the spoken words, but encompasses the entire story of the musical. The Bookwriter is officially responsible for the writing of the book, but the entire writing team needs to collaborate on the story.
The collaborative process is explored through six units including: THE IDEA, THE OUTLINE, THE ROUGH DRAFT, ADDING SONGS, REVISIONS, and FINISHING TOUCHES. Along the way, other topics are incorporated including: Unwavering Want, Action Loops, Conflict, Adaptation, Language of an outline, Story structure, Creating a Character Worksheet, Exposition, Character Diction, Dialogue, Song Spotting, Incorporating Songs, Dealing with Feedback, Collaboration Agreements, Project Pitches, Public Domain
This course qualifies as the Book Lab element of the Academy for New Musical Theatre’s Core Curriculum.
OUTLINING ANYWHERE!
Instructor: Elise Dewsberry
Six Monday evenings from 7pm to 10pm
July 14, 21, 28; August 4, 11, 18
Course Fee: $495 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $395)
The Outlining Lab is available in-person OR online (or a combination of the two!) Video lectures, exercises, handouts, and tests are all available online. Attend the live sessions for feedback on your homework assignments - or submit your work online if you can’t make the sessions.
An outline can be an invaluable writer’s tool for clarifying the structure and story arc of a musical idea. It can then serve as a blueprint for the rough draft that the collaborators will use to develop the new musical. Writers who skip this important step in the development process are likely to find themselves bogged down with a partially written new show that is riddled with logical inconsistencies, and does not compellingly deliver the intentions of the creative team.
In the Outlining Lab, you will be lead step-by-step through the process of developing a musical idea from concept through to a working outline, with detailed constructive feedback along the way. By the end of this ten-unit course, you should have a well-developed and detailed outline that will solidly prepare you for the collaborative task of writing your new musical.
Along with the basic six steps to an outline, other topics dealt with will include: Types of Conflict, 20 Questions for your Outline, Language of an Outline, Dealing with Feedback, Pitch and Synopsis, One-Liner and Logline
All courses are offered at ANMT, 5628 Vineland Avenue, North Hollywood.
For more information, and to register for courses, CLICK HERE.
ANMT Launches Annual 15 Minute Musicals
What do obsessive lovers, television show addicts, and Harvard-educated zombies all have in common?
They are all the topics of brand new fifteen-minute musicals that will have their world premiere on June 23 and 24 at the Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood. The annual 15 Minute Musicals are a decades-long tradition at the Academy for New Musical Theatre, and one of the hottest tickets in town.
The 15 Minute Musical Project concludes each season of the Academy’s world-famous Core Curriculum of the writers’ workshop, which has been in existence for over 40 years.
For the final project of the curriculum, composers, lyricists and bookwriters are put together on writing teams and are given eight short weeks to write, revise and polish a brand-new musical written for actors whom they’ve never met before.
“It’s like a rite of passage,” says Elise Dewsberry, the Academy’s Artistic Director and dramaturge/producer of this season’s 15 Minute Musicals. “We design the process to imitate a full-length show in a professional theatre: draft, rehearsal, rewrites, rehearsal, opening. It’s really a wonderful experience, but it’s often stressful, just like a million-dollar opening night. Our writers’ names are in the program, and it’s important to them they write the best show they possibly can, in the short amount of time we’ve given them.”
This season there will be three 15-minute musicals, featuring the same cast of four actors. The writers have been given a theme of Can’t Get Enough: three short musicals about addiction.
The shows and writing teams this season are:
The Lover: A Tale of Obsessive Love; Grace Jasmine (book and lyrics; Ron Barnett (music)
Smartest Zombie at Harvard; Bryon Richards (book); Natalie Elder (lyrics); Marc Macalintal (music)
Spoilers!; Mitch Glaser (book); Mike Shapiro (lyrics); Erik Przytulski (music)
The cast for all three musicals is: Noel Britton, Sara Gonzales, Jeffrey Landman, and Kevin Yee. The musicals will be directed by Joshua Finkel, and music directed by Ron Barnett.
As a special added bonus this season, we will also be giving a glimpse into the Core Curriculum process by having the cast sing samples of the assignments that have been written during the course of year.
Tickets for June 23 and 24 are $25, and are now on sale at www.anmt.org