A Blog by Margaret Rose
Writers, Directors, and Actors, and all of us who create musical theater … I think we all tend to think of ourselves as the creators of the experience. The writers who formulate the words and the notes to tell the story. The Directors, who provide focus and vision to make the story come to life. The Actors, who become the characters of the story. The story certainly wouldn’t exist without us. However, the great thing about telling a story is that
I remember sitting in the Booth Theater next to Eric, both of us enthralled with the calypso-infused score and the delightful storytelling of Once On This Island. It was 1990, and a time of transition for me. When I had moved to New York six years earlier, I wanted a career as a Director, and I had already directed several large productions of classic American musicals in the heart of Manhattan. But Eric had a different idea. It was around this time that Eric had suggested
I’ve always hated doing improv. Whether in acting classes or on the speech and debate team, I always wanted the script ahead of time. I wanted to be able to memorize it, rehearse it, try different phrasing, different delivery styles, wanted to be sure of my lines and sure of myself. Put me on a stage with a bunch of comic geniuses and nothing more than a couple of prompts, and I froze in terror.
In life, I want a script, too. I’m a list-maker. And when life throws me a curve ball and something
No one to whom I ranted ever took my side. They all nodded to indulge me, and I got the impression I had taken my obsession with accuracy in lyrics too far. No one else cared about the fallacy of this lyric in the hit song:
IT’S ONLY HALF-PAST TWELVE, BUT I DON’T CARE
IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE
But honestly, it would have been an easy fix for Mr. Jackson’s songwriters. It could have been written like this, and then it would have been accurate:
IT’S ONLY JUST TURNED TWELVE, BUT I DON’T CARE
IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE
That would have solved it all. But record sales continued, and time passed. Other songs
All of my friends know how much I love listening to musicals. Some of them also know my guilty pleasure of listening to country music, and many of them know I’m a bit of a Parrothead, too. So a few years ago when Alan Jackson posed the question, “…What would Jimmy Buffett do?” and was answered by Jimmy’s Gulf-Western twang chiming into his duet, my friends weren’t surprised that this musical theater-country music-Parrothead wanted to
The more we researched, the more we became passionate about telling the story of the Donner Party. Because it wasn’t about some distant historical event in our nation’s past. It was about the very real people who lived through it. We became inspired by them and by their courage. Even as we focused the story of our script and eliminated individual incidents and rearranged historical fact to suit the structure of a two-act musical, we were determined to
That moment just before the overture begins. That moment, whether I’m in the audience, whether I’m the writer/director peeking in from the back row, or whether I’m backstage on the crew or in the cast … that moment when all are assembled, ready, anticipating … that moment just before we collectively launch ourselves into a shared journey of musical theater. One of my favorite moments in any show I’ve ever seen. The Moment Before. That moment, when we don’t know yet if
“Musicals aren’t written – they’re rewritten.” I was living this old adage, as I worked on a rewrite of the last section of our song, “A Perfectly Good Umbrella.” I was working to remove the word, “insignificant” from an early line of the section, so as not to lessen the impact of the word when used in the final line of the same section.
In the rewriting process, I realized another fault of the lyric: it took too long to
I love great lyrics. I thrill to witty wordplay, internal rhymes, and alliteration. The cleverness of Sondheim excites me, the pure simplicity of Hammerstein fills my heart. I appreciate the skill and cleverness that goes into writing a perfect lyric. I have studied the craft of writing lyrics and know the basic rules to craft a good one. My goal is always to write the best lyric I can, and sometimes
It was 1984 and I had just moved to New York City. By night, I was working as a Stage Manager for a production of Comedy of Errors at the Equity Library Theater. By day, I held down a job typing contracts for a publishing company. I would work through my lunch hour in order to be able to leave work a little early. I’d throw on my sneakers and
One Sunday afternoon in February on the Main Stage of the Sacramento Theatre Company, the Young Professionals Conservatory was showing the final performance of their production of PIPPIN to a packed house. Across the courtyard in the black box theater, another audience was enjoying STC’s production of BARK! The Musical. Upstairs, a different cast and crew were in rehearsal for A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. In the staff conference room, there was a meeting of the creative team for a new musical, about to launch a 2-day workshop and staged reading in preparation for
