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How To Guides

by Richard Andrews
September 2003

Richard Andrews has worked on eighteen new West End musicals in every role from Stage Manager through to Producer. These ranged from the hugely successful to the spectacularly unsuccessful, with both ends of the spectrum providing a useful learning experience. He founded FACADE in 1988 to create, promote and produce new works in musical theatre, and has run courses at Goldsmith's College in the craft of musical theatre writing. His book Writing A Musical has been acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic: "it is hard to fault him - wise words indeed" - Tim Rice . . . "a veritable cornucopia of expertise" - Marvin Laird

1) The Concept

No one can teach you to be creative or turn you into a great writer and it is impossible to go into the subject in any detail in these few words. What these guidelines can do is to help you to think in more productive ways and help you to make the most of your writing ability by providing signposts to flag up things you should bear in mind and methods you should use when writing a musical.

Alan Ayckbourn writes a play every year and he has described the process as 50 weeks of planning and 2 weeks of writing. The planning process, in which you explore the options of the story and characters and develop a series of blueprints that will define the actual writing, is even more important in a musical, because it has book, music and lyrics.

But before you can plan you need The Idea.

This must pass the following tests to be worth pursuing:

What will music will add to the telling of this story?
Is it genuinely original not just a rehash of something else?
If an adaptation of existing material, is it rediscovered for the different medium?
If an adaptation of existing material is it out of copyright?
If not, will the originator agree to its use?
What is its point of view?
Whose story is it?
Is it big enough to sustain a whole show? (Two men talking in a pub won't be.)

Now you have found the idea we can look at the planning process, starting with a few definitions.

The Book: The framework that supports the show, on which the words (spoken or sung) hang.

The Structure: How you organise the material and tell the story. It is the most important factor to be taken into consideration.

You should start with:

The Concept: This answers the question: "What's it about?" It encapsulates in a sentence the idea and how it is to be treated. For example:

Rent is the story of La Boheme, translated to contemporary Lower East Side Manhattan and employing a rock score.

The fully developed concept should have:
A hero (of either gender) who is a sympathetic character with whom the audience can identify and through whom they can experience emotion. Their motivation drives the plot.
A plot whose obstacles or reversals of fortune require the hero to exhibit some sort of physical or emotional courage and moral purpose, resulting in spiritual growth.
A theme drawn from the plot, which is a timeless universal statement about the human condition.
Originality in the development of the story and the method of its telling.

Every scene and song you write must in some way develop this concept.

Once you have honed this you can move on to:

Part II - The Storyline

A detailed description of the story, which, together with the emotional journey of the characters must have a symapthetic and satisfying shape employing the form:

Exposition - introduce characters with whom the audience will sympathise and in whom they will be interested, located in a situation that intrigues the audience as to how it will turn out.

Development - add new and unforeseen twists which will further puzzle the audience as to what will happen, putting the characters in jeopardy in a way that is not easily resolved but over which the audience must want them to triumph.

Resolution - bring the story to a realistic, satisfying and (hopefully) unexpected conclusion.

This is classically expressed as Boy Meets Girl - Boy Loses Girl - Boy Finds Girl

These should be roughly in the proportions:
Exposition 25% : Development 50% : Resolution 25%.

There should be one main plot (usually a love story) with one or two sub plots, one of which must have humour.

Character Breakdown
In tandem with the Storyline you should develop a biography for each character, detailing their physical characteristics / personality / background / speech patterns.

Once you have completed these you can move on to:

The Scene Breakdown:

Divide the story into specific scenes, detailing location, time action and characters involved.

From this the song points can be developed - those moments in the story when music will add an extra dimension to the storytelling - which can then be extrapolated into a song analysis plot.

This process enables you to develop and refine your ideas into the most effective form before you start to write.

The Scenes:

Each scene should contain:

One or more plot points
and/or a song
and/or comedy/dramatic action.

You should start with a positive action or statement, build up to a climax, and end with either:

A joke
A surprise or shock
A pointer to the next scene
A song

It is particularly good to end with a song because it can contain all/any of the others, and allows the audience to respond/recover afterwards.

There should ensure that there is contrast in succeeding scenes - drama / humour - long / short scenes - song / speech.

Part III: The Songs

These must grow from the situation or character and not be imposed on it/him/her.

They must be either:

Active - forwarding the plot (likened to corridors because they take you somewhere else),
or

Reflective - revealing something new about the character (likened to rooms because they contain the essence of their owner)

They must not comment on the action or repeat what has just happened in the scene, and by the end of the number the situation of the character/s involved must have changed.

Songs are not there to provide light relief from the plot.

Song Analysis Plot:

This lists the songs, with the type (ballad - rhythm - comedy - production number) and (solo - duet - trio - quartet - ensemble) and which character sings them. It enables you to ensure that succeeding numbers are not of the same type or sung by the same character.

The Lyrics:

Characters must not become different people when they sing - their ideas and use of language must be consistent.

Musical theatre songs must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Each section must have something new to say and only the title should be repeated.

The lyrics should exhibit prosody - the stress pattern should echo normal speech patterns and coincide with the stresses in the music.

The lyrics should exhibit euphony - be supported by the music and singable on the notes written.

Rhymes must be perfect - for instance do not attempt to rhyme "together" and "forever".

The Music

You should bear in mind these considerations:

Style - must be fresh and not derivative, suitable for the characters and story, and with a strong form - AABA, ABAC, ABAB.

Melody - tunes must be melodic, 'hummable' and 'rememberable'.

Harmony - songs must have an interesting structure with key changes, modulations and unusual relationships.

Rhythm - is the defining element in a song, providing a sense of propulsion to the music.

Variety - there must be a varied score and each number must explore and support the lyrics.

Remember that the principal instrument you are writing for is the human voice.

4) Links

For more in depth information about how to write a musical you may want to purchase
Writing a Musical by Richard Andrews, published by Robert Hale

The Writer's Guild

Writernet

Songwriters Guild

British Academy of Composers and Songwriters

FACADE

Mercury Musical Developments

National Musical Theatre Nework

Performing Right Society

Tisch School of the Arts

TheatreNet