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 attend those sessions by Skype.
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
Don’t start writing until your outline is rock solid!
INSTRUCTOR INFO: Elise Dewsberry Currently the Artistic Director of ANMT, Elise has been involved in the development of new works for over fifteen years: as an actor/singer, as a director, as a dramaturge, and as a writer. At ANMT, Elise co-teaches the Core Curriculum, runs the Full Length Curriculum and Book Lab, and is the dramaturge for the annual Search for New Musicals. Elise is also on the New Works Committee of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and is the co-ordinator of the SoCal New Musicals Network. While living in Toronto, Elise served as the Assistant Artistic Director of the Muskoka Festival; the Co-Ordinator of the festival’s annual Musical Theatre Writer’s Colony, the Associate Dramaturge of the Canadian Stage Company; the Resident Dramaturge of the Smile Theatre Company; and was the co-founder of Toronto’s ScriptLab. Elise spent many years touring Canada with NINE MONTHS - a one-woman musical which she commissioned from writers Carl Ritchie and Stephen Woodjetts. Elise and Carl also co-wrote ANY BODY HOME?, which has been published by Dramatic Publishing and has had multiple productions around the world.
‘I recently had the pleasure of working with The Academy for New Musical Theatre on a reading of THE GROUCH’S DAUGHTER, my new musical co-written with Jack Helbig. ANMT staff member Elise Dewsberry served as both dramaturg and director, and in our years of working on this show, no one person has been as helpful to us as she was. Prior to the reading, we received a set of notes that were as thoughtful as they were thorough. ANMT’s suggestions led to a rewrite that greatly helped me shape the show and refine its style. I’m deeply impressed with the care and intelligence of their creative input, and would not hesitate to work with ANMT again.’ -Mark Hollmann, Tony award-winning composer, Urinetown
‘We …feel as if a nurturing dramaturgical Mary Poppins has visited us with wonderful insightful nourishment. It appeared to us that you seemed to really relate to the characters we’ve established and are caught up with their plight and have come up with ways to strengthen them … Your suggestions are invaluable to us …’ –Ron Yatter
‘Elise Dewsberry’s rare gift for analyzing plot and character is enormously helpful to writers. Her story sense is phenomenal.’ - Stephen Oles, bookwriter, Seattle
‘Wow!! … It’s as though you were reading our minds … What’s particularly brilliant is that you are having us work through the process in manageable stages. What a gift you have, that you can lead us so that we need to climb out of only puddles of quicksand of our own making, rather than oceans of it! We both hold you in the absolute highest esteem imaginable.’ - Roger Love and Ann McNamee
Course Fee: $300 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $275)
These four three-hour workshops are designed for professional singers and actors looking for a new understanding of the musical theater songs they perform. Goals of past participants have included freshening up old audition material, trying out new songs, making bigger choices (in a safe environment), and widening their understanding of the musical theater canon and their specific place in it. Participants are required to sign up for ALL FOUR SESSIONS and will be asked to prepare four different songs. Class is limited to eight performers so each person is guaranteed one-on-one time each week. Auditors are welcome with the permission of ANMT.
Week 1: Classic Musical Theater Golden era songs, up to and including Sondheim, but really aiming more to the standards. Some writers to consider are Rodgers/Hammerstein, Rodgers/Hart, Frank Loesser, Cole Porter, Gershwin, Burton Lane, Lerner and Loewe, Harold Arlen, Charles Strouse, Leonard Bernstein, Cy Coleman, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, Marvin Hamlisch, Kander/Ebb, Adler and Ross, Schmidt and Jones, Meredith Willson, Harold Rome, Comden and Green, Yip Harburg, Bock and Harnick, Dietz and Schwartz, or their contemporaries.
Week 2: Contemporary Theater Song You’ve seen these songs on YouTube or at NewMusicalTheatre.com, or you have the CD but you never made it to NY to see the show. Some writers to consider are Stephen Schwartz, Maltby and Shire, Ahrens and Flaherty, Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich, Andrew Lippa, Jason Robert Brown, Adam Guettel, Jeanine Tesori, David Yazbek, John Bucchino, Jeff Marx, Bobby Lopez, Michael John LaChiusa, Alan Menken, Bill Finn, David Zippel, Ricky Ian Gordon, Randy Newman, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Kerrigan/Lowdermilk, Pasek & Paul, and their contemporaries.
Week 3: Pop/Rock Depending on the audition you can sometimes get away with a song from the 60s or 70s. Other times they’re specifically looking for something written in the last 5-10 years. For this class, I’m looking for a song that would be more likely to be heard on the radio than in a Broadway theater. Think Kelly Clarkson, Jason Mraz, Adele, or your favorite singer/songwriter or band. Yes, I’m serious.
Week 4: Georgia Stitt originals A chance to work directly with the person who wrote your song. Find out what that lyric really means, why this key matters, and when you can (or can NOT) embellish what’s on the page. (If you need help finding songs, do some surfing at www.georgiastitt.com.)
INSTRUCTOR INFO: GEORGIA STITT is a composer/lyricist, music director and vocal coach. Her original musicals include: BIG RED SUN (with John Jiler); HELLO! MY BABY (with Cheri Steinkellner); THE WATER (with Jeff Hylton and Tim Werenko); MOSAIC (commissioned for Off-Broadway and written with Cheri Steinkellner), and SING ME A HAPPY SONG (a musical revue). RECORDINGS: This Ordinary Thursday: The Songs Of Georgia Stitt; Alphabet City Cycle featuring Kate Baldwin (PS Classics); and solo albums from Susan Egan, Lauren Kennedy, Kate Baldwin, Stuart Matthew Price, Daniel Boys, Caroline Sheen, Kevin Odekirk and Sam Davis. BROADWAY (MD/pianist/coach): Little Shop Of Horrors, Sweet Smell Of Success, Avenue Q, The Music Man, Titanic, Annie, Parade. TV/FILM: America’s Got Talent, Grease: You’re The One That I Want, Clash Of The Choirs, Once Upon A Mattress. TEACHING: Founder of THE GYM (NYC), master classes in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Australia, and at colleges and theaters all over the US. Private vocal coach. EDUCATION: Vanderbilt (BMus), NYU (MFA).
ANMT’s sixth annual MUSICAL THEATRE BOOT CAMP presents: MUSIC FOR LYRICISTS
Instructor: Bill Berry
Saturday/Sunday afternoon, 2pm to 6pm
August 6 & 7
Course Fee: $95 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $50)
Have you ever felt a little bowled over when your collaborator starts throwing around terms like ‘coda’, ‘dotted-eighth’ and ‘arpeggio’? Don’t you want to just tell them to go ‘Fugue’ themselves? I KNOW right? It’s like they’re speaking a whole different language. (Italian maybe?) Well don’t be dismayed! ANMT to the rescue again with a cool little course called Music For Lyricists. Learn the basics of music theory and how to read a lead sheet. Find why some words fit smoothly into a musical phrase while others do not. Never again say to your analyst, ‘My composer doesn’t understand me’. Communication is the key!
Taught by songwriter/funnyman Bill Berry, Music For Lyricists will offer you the basics of what those dots and lines are all about as well as to assist you to write lyrics to melodies with a whole new perspective.
Los Angeles songwriter Bill Berry co-wrote the musical soundtrack for ABC television’s acclaimed 2006 comedy series SONS & DAUGHTERS. His songs have been featured in films, theater and television, as well as numerous commercials and artist’s recordings and many of his lyrics are included in the popular book on lyric writing BECOMING REMARKABLE by Harriet Schock.
On Monday, April 11th at the Colony Theatre in Burbank, the Academy for New Musical Theatre will present the third annual Got Musical!, a sneak preview of brand-new musicals in development for producers across the country, giving an insight into the Academy’s process for creating new musicals from scratch specifically for producers and theatre companies.
Musicals to be showcased include nine new shows currently in development for producers:
Windjammers by Robin Share and Clay Zambo — songs and stories about shipping on the Great Lakes.
A Midsummersausage Night’s Dream by Joanne Koch, Bill Johnson and Larry Todd Johnson - a fanciful retelling of Shakespeare in the land of the Cheeseheads.
Duplexity by Eric Dodson and Jake Anthony — a envisioning of The Parent Trap for the gay community.
The Max Factor Factor by Adrian Bewley, Chana Wise, and Joseph Blodgett — Two gay leading men from rival studios in repressed 1930’s Hollywood.
Madwomen of Manhattan by Marian Partee, Patricia Zehentmayr, and Cindy O’Connor — a woman finds herself in a very unusual loony bin with some very famous inmates.
Manson’s Girls by Scott Guy, Mitchell Glaser, and Todd Syswerda - the story of Charles Manson from the point of the view of the women in his life.
The Ring by Eric Dodson and Alan Ross Fleishman - Will the high school reunion of some old rivals unearth TRUTH or…CAT FIGHTS?
The Big Ol’ Orange County Beauty Pageant by Sachi Oyama, Brad Beaver, and Tom Adams — what’s behind the usual cat fights at a beauty pageant?
In the Mind of Olympians by writers from both sides of the pond — comparing and contrasting the upcoming 2011 Olympics with the last games held in London in 1948.
The excerpts will be presented by members of the Academy Repertory Company (Elise Dewsberry, Ellen Dostal, Scott Guy, Evelyn Halus, David Holmes, Christopher Maikish, Sari Rose Poll, Andrea Press, Tedd Szeto, and Peter Welkin); and Guest Artists Jamie Baer, Noel Britton, Jordan Kai Burnett, Alex Chester, Randy Guiaya, Evan Laffer, and Minta Mullins. Musical Direction by Ross Kalling.
Guy explains that the ANMT development process is fairly simple: the producer generates or approves an idea; the creative team creates a paragraph-sized version, then a half-dozen-page version, and eventually a 15-minute first pass. At this point, the producer either shuts down the project, or agrees to produce a public reading of the work. If a producer approves of the project after the first 15-minute pass, the Academy supports table readings and workshops of the work, nurturing it through first draft. Then, the producer produces a public reading of the work at his expense. After the producer has fulfilled his obligation by producing the reading, he is under no obligation to produce the musical; but if he does produce the musical, the Academy expects the producer to do so under terms approved by the Dramatists Guild.
“We’ve found this to be a win-win situation for the writer and for the producer,” says Artistic Director Elise Dewsberry, “and we’re excited to share this funny, artful and stimulating evening and showing off our innovative business model for developing new musicals for independent producers and theatre companies.”
Got Musical! takes place at 7:30pm on Monday, April 11th at the Colony Theatre in Burbank. Tickets are $10. For more information, and to make a reservation, please visit www.anmt.org and click on Got Musical!
We’re collaborating with writers from Mercury Musical Developments in London to create a new musical revue. It’s called “In the Minds of Olympians” — and we’re giving a sneak-preview concert of it, and Robin Share/Clay Zambo’s “Windjammers” on Feb. 14th at 7:30pm at the Colony Theatre. You can order tickets by clicking this link: http://www.anmt.org/events_reservation_1.asp?EventID=155.
In the Mind of Olympians is a powerful and touching revue about athletes, set in both London in 1948 and London 2012, written by contemporary musical theatre writers in London and Los Angeles, presented in concert at the Colony Theatre, 555 Third Street in Burbank, at 7:30pm on February 14th.
Developed by Mercury Musical Developments in London and the Academy for New Musical Theatre in Los Angeles, this new musical is being developed and workshopped simultaneously in London and North Hollywood.
‘It is thrilling working again with London musical theatre writers,’ says Elise Dewsberry, the Academy’s Artistic Director, ‘We developed four shows with Mercury Musicals in 2005, back when it made economic sense to mail a crate full of VHS tapes to London. Now, of course, we’re streamcasting live rehearsals, and uploading videos and mp3’s and Skyping, and so we’re working even more closely with the writers. We’re hoping to workshop the whole show this summer, and then inspire a series of productions all across the country in 2012.’
The athletes featured in the 1948 portions of the revue are based on real men and women who competed in London, right after World War II ended; the athletes in 2012 are composites of contemporary athletes.
‘Comparing 1948 London to NOW gives us a sobering and exhilarating perspective,’ says Scott Guy, one of the three book writers of the revue, ‘seeing how much the world has changed since London last hosted the Olympics: there were so many athletes back then competing out of patriotism, and now Olympians are selling their citizenship to the highest bidder. Or, did you know that women weren’t allowed to run the marathon until the 1970’s? The longest distance they were allowed to run in 1948 was 800 meters. Writing this revue allows us to shine spotlights on real people with real issues, comparing them to our own issues…what’s changed? What’s frighteningly the same?’
There are three bookwriters on the project, and twelve different songwriting teams. Two bookwriters are British, one is American, and the song writing teams are from both sides of the Pond as well.
The writers of the show include: Craig Adams, Mark Allcorn, Jake Anthony, Richard Castle, Michael Dresser, Richard Free, Scott Guy, Carl Johnson, Larry Todd Johnson, Matthew Levine, Robin Share, Peter Shrubshall, Chana Wise, and Clay Zambo.
The concert is directed by: Lindsey Hendrickson, David Holmes, Todd Nielsen, Luke Yankee, Andrea Press, and Peter Welkin. Music Direction is by Ross Källing. Stage Management is by Kevin Meoak.
The cast includes: Noel Britton, Elise Dewsberry, Randy Guiaya, Scott Guy, David Holmes, Mike Irizarry, Evan Laffer, Christiana Moffa, Minta Mullins, Sari Rose Poll, Andrea Press, Sara J. Stuckey, Tedd Szeto, Christina Valo, and Peter Welkin.
The concert on February 14th presents seven sections of the revue; the second half of the evening features another musical in development, Windjammers, telling the dramatic stories of the men and women of the Great Lakes’ shipping industry in the 19th century.
Admission is $10 at the door, or make reservations at the Academy’s website: www.anmt.org.
It’s time once again for ANMT’s exciting online HOLIDAY AUCTION!
The fun begins this Friday, November 26th - right after you’ve enjoyed all your turkey on Thanksgiving Day!
Just navigate to our auction site - sponsored by BiddingForGood - and you’ll find all kinds of amazing gifts and gadgets at some real bargain prices. And all the proceeds go to help in the creation and development of brand new musicals through ANMT!
Hankering to eat somewhere new? Want to see a great musical live onstage? Crave an ocean breeze flowing through your hair? Wish you had learned to play the guitar? Need a new evening purse for that big night out? Mommy needs a massage? Need a good tax preparation service?
You’ll be able to bid on all these items - and many more - during the ANMT Holiday Auction.
The auction opens this Friday, November 26th, and runs until Sunday, December 12 at 5pm.
Don’t miss out - click now to see what’s available and place a WATCH on your favorite items:
