WHY PEOPLE WHO HATE MUSICALS SHOULDN'T WRITE MUSICALS

DISCLAIMER
I just want to clarify,.. I have nothing against playwrights, songwriters, performers, poets and novelists who profess to hate musicals giving the writing of a musical a good old go. I’m not entirely sure I understand WHY you’d want to do something so incredibly difficult without loving it but that’s NONE OF MY BUSINESS.

But if you do want to give it a go… how about doing it the way that most of the rest of us do it? No big commission, no big producer, no big scheduled run, no promised royalties, no massive advertising budget. Just you and the piece of art you want to create.

I do however have something against those playwrights, songwriters, poets and novelists who profess to hate musicals being given massive commissions and opportunities in an art form that they hate. Because then it affects me, my colleagues and my industry and that’s when it does BECOME MY BUSINESS.

So let me tell you for why…

THE CUL-DE-SAC
When a big opportunity to be involved in the creation of a musical is given to someone from outside the industry who has displayed no interest in musical theatre throughout their career, it’s like driving into a cul de sac…

Certainly, on a rare occasion it may end up being a beautiful cul de sac, full of gorgeous houses, lush gardens and expensive cars parked on perfect tarmac. Or it will end up with delapidated houses, gardens full of weeds and discarded syringes, fences broken and hedges unkempt with wild dogs roaming and howling up and down the pot holed gravel excuse for a road.

But regardless of whether or not it results in either of these, it remains a cul de sac. Or in other words… it isn’t going anywhere because the person who designed it and built it was never really interested in building roads that go somewhere. The literal translation of cul-de-sac is “Bottom of the sack” or something that has “Only one way out” and that’s back the way you came.

Why are these ventures into the industry by those who profess to hate musicals akin a cul-de-sac?

Let me give you my opinion…

When you commission someone who hates musicals to write a musical what you are going to get (19 times out of 20) is ONE musical. It may be good, it may be terrible, it may be mediocre but ultimately it will only be ONE. As a result your investment has extraordinarily limited returns based purely on this one product. Because there will not be another one, there will be no product development, no innovation, this person will not come up with new ideas to turn into pieces of musical drama, they will not wake in the middle of the night with the next big thing in their heads, they will not go onto create bolder, better, funnier more well crafted musicals. They will make ONE musical.

That’s fine. They have entered into the industry with their commission and they have exited with their royalties and maybe a few awards.

And that’s why it’s a massive waste of resources.

Why would you invest considerable time, money and resource in someone who has no interest or love for the future of the industry you are investing in? Indeed, they’ve professed publicly that they actively HATE your industry.

THE EXCUSES

“Well, we need fresh voices in musical theatre!”
Fine. But it is simply not the case that established music artists are the only ones with the monopoly on a fresh sound in musical theatre. It’s just that you aren’t looking hard enough. And certainly, I think acceptable fresh voices should at the very least mean people who don’t actively despise the form.

“These people bring audiences who wouldn’t usually go to musicals into the musical theatre market. That’s good for everyone!”
Fine. Except when it’s not. I would argue that precisely NONE of the very finest musicals in the canon were written by people who were not principally musical theatre artists. So what these audiences are often being introduced to is a sub-standard example of the form which can then perpetuate the idea that they hate musicals. If even a musical written by their favourite artist is still not good then how could they ever possibly hope to love musical theatre? Perhaps by going to a musical by people who actually know how to write one.

“But we want to do something new. WE want to PUSH THE BOUNDARIES of musical theatre!”
Fine. But before you can make something truly genre defying you have to have the skill to be able to make something basically competent. Often these people enter into their project believing they are doing something that’s pushing the boundaries only to find out that they have no idea where the boundaries are in the first place. The musical theatre industry is full of great innovators who know where the boundaries are and also how to push at and bend them without breaking them. We don’t need assistance in that department. Imagine a Formula 1 garage, in which a brand new apprentice mechanic is given the opportunity to completely redesign the engine for Ferrari. See how dumb that sounds?

“It’s okay though! We know they know nothing about musical theatre. But we’re getting lots of people on board in the creative team who are massively experienced musical theatre creatives! They’ll help them along!”
Fine. I’ve been one myself. The industry provides producers, directors, musical directors, writers and dramaturgs experienced in the creation of musicals to help guide the new apprentice through the swamp-like milieu that is the making of a musical. But this is all merely mitigation, putting protections in place to ensure the whole project doesn’t come off the rails. The writers of a musical are its beating heart. Skilled, dedicated and experienced writers who love the form bring with them essential and unfathomable contributions to the crafting of a musical. They contribute to every department; knowledge, dramaturgy, book, character, drama, tension, tone, feel and yes of course music and lyrics. The music artist who has never written a musical is, through no fault of their own often unable to contribute artistically and creatively on the same level as those that they are working with. As a result, time and resource is spent educating the uneducated in the principles of this complex form which can never be learned across the making of a single musical (no matter how many years that may take). This leads to imbalances in what is already a delicately balanced process. I have witnessed new musicals created by non-musical theatre artists who feel like they have entirely lost their artistic voice within the process. I can only imagine this to be the result of the lack of confidence in their knowledge of long form storytelling.

THE REASONS

“Okay…So tell me more about this cul-de-sac idea. Why do these makers often never return to make another one?”
We’ll there’s a few reasons I think… the first is that when they enter into these collborations, I don’t know if they realise two fundamental things:

1. How hard it is to do well
2. How bloody long it takes

Probably the more important reason (in my own opinion) is that the resulting work and it’s reception does not satisfy their own high standards or their expectations. I remember very clearly writing my first musical. If I hadn’t already been completely in love with musicals (having watched and performed in them since I was small) there’s no way I would have gone back to do another one. It was an extremely difficult and stressful process but one that I recognised as the beginning of a journey.

These writers often enter into the world of musical theatre without the unique skillset that it takes to create a good piece of musical drama. They often know how to write a good song but that is not enough for musical theatre. That’s a given. That’s the most absolute basic requirement. The musical theatre artist also needs a thorough working knowledge of…

-How to craft an effective dramatic song
-Knowledge of how to choose song moments
-How to build into a song from dialogue
-How to underscore effectively
-How to utilise a reprise
-A considerable knowledge of dramaturgy and narrative structure
-How to utilise different techniques to ensure an audiences ears don’t get tired across an evening
-How to ensure the score is tonally varied
-How to collaborate effectively
-How to take criticism
-How to give feedback
-How to rewrite things that don’t quite work
-How to live with throwing out a great song if it doesn’t tell the story
-How to write lyrics that an audience can comprehend in real time
-How to write for voices that are not their own
-How to write for character
-How to understand stagecraft…

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

I could go on for an entire blog post listing the skills that a musical theatre artist needs to develop in order to become a master of their craft. It’s almost endless. And it is precisely because it is endless that people who hate musicals have no interest in developing those skills.

But the most important reason why these opportunities should not be given to these people is because they DON’T LOVE IT.

In order to put in the investment and time it needs for an MT creator to develop all of the above skills. You have to absolutely LOVE it. The musical theatre industry is incredibly tough and the making of a musical can be an absolute joy but also an absolute nightmare. And unless you love it you will not be able to persevere through the tough times.

So that’s why I want the big opportunities to go to the MT writers who love the form, who have done the yards, who have hard won experience and who just need the chance.