It's been an awfully long time, all you people out there who don't follow my blog. I have to apologize for the wait, but over the next week or so I'm going to put up the three reviews of the musicals I saw recently, and maybe even a decent article or something.
In December, I went to Avenue Q with my roommate at the Lied Center. It was the traveling Broadway company that I saw, so it should be pretty representative of the real thing. My only difficulty watching was that it was a little quiet from where I was sitting. Anyway, on to the review:
Plot: 18/20
The plot of Avenue Q was probably one of the weaker points of the show. The whole first act was built up of small vignettes, all entertaining of course. But when I went out for intermission, I was questioning myself about what had REALLY happened in all the time. It just seemed like song after song to try to get all the humor out to keep the audience interested. The second act did manage to wrap everything up pretty well, but it almost seemed like I was watching two separate musicals that just happened to share characters. Still, it was easy to follow and there wasn't any point where I was saying "This should go".
Characters: 12/15
Maybe this was just a frustration of my expectations, but the regular people sort of took away from the whole puppet thing. I don't know. A lot of the characters seemed really 1-Dimensional and sometimes downright annoying, which I know was part of the intent, but I wanted to shoot Christmas Eve from the second she opened her mouth. Gary Coleman is about ten years away from being culturally irrelevant too. Most of the characters were fine, but I just felt like they were given vices in order to make songs about said vices.
Dialogue: 13/15
The dialogue was very clever throughout, with cultural references, double entendres, and things of that nature. And even with that it still managed to seem very realistic. It loses two points, though, for the completely unnecessarily overblown accents. Some characters were hard to understand, and I don't think that was due to bad acting as much as preference.
Music: 18/20
I was slightly disappointed in the orchestration of the pit. It almost got into the realm of piano/bass/guitar/drums, which is always undesirable to me. Most of the songs were great and pretty memorable. That's even outside the two that everyone knows and beats to death. All of the lyrics were clever and I was laughing through most of the songs. There were still a few diamonds in the rough (Typically, if a song lasts less than a minute, it could have been cut)
Adaptation: 10/10
This is in some ways an adaptation of Sesame Street, but was extremely clever in that regard, so it gets full adaptation points.
Curtain Call: 4/5
I can't for the life of me remember how the curtain call went, but I feel like I remember complaining about it. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt though.
Theme/Underlying Social Message: 6/7
This was your run-of-the-mill standard theme of following your dreams and stuff like that, but it seemed down to Earth and realistic (mostly), so it didn't feel as cliche and contrived as other shows I have seen in the past. Still nothing spectacular, but nothing really needing to be punished.
Other Opinion Category: 5/8
One thing that I unfortunately have to mark down Avenue Q for is how patently offensive it is. I enjoyed every bit of it, but when I objectively look at it, I realize that twenty years down the line it won't hold the same magic for me as it did when I saw it originally. Musicals should be able to stand the test of time, and I'm not sure if Avenue Q has that capability. It seems a little gimmicky, just for the fact that it's all built on the whole "Sesame street for Adults" concept. It just sort of seems like an "...On Ice" sort of thing.
Total: 86/100
I really enjoyed the show, don't get me wrong, I just would say the writing and music merits of it aren't as strong as other shows, and that's what this blog is about, not about how much fun you'll have.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The State of Broadway Rant
There is atleast one time every week that someone says something that makes me want to give the State of Broadway Speech, but I always refrain. I finally decided that it was time to write it down, in my blog, so I can always link to it or reference it. I know I have covered various small aspects of this in my other posts, but here is the centralized version. So here we go.
Broadway today is in a serious decline, no thanks to any of the people who claim to like it. Despite it's glorious history, the current shell of the past is circling the drain of irrelevance. In general, I blame three musicals. Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, and Rent. Now at this point, people just think that I'm 'hating' on the popular musicals. However, none of these musicals are exceptionally good and the reason that Broadway is in serious decline is BECAUSE these are popular. I mean, if they were popular, but didn't affect anything, that would be a completely different matter.
Phantom of the Opera doesn't necessarily belong on here as much as the other offenders, because it isn't Andrew Lloyd Webber's fault. When we went to New York on a choir trip, we saw POTA and I even tossed aside some of my former resentment of it. However, the problem with Phantom is it's extremely long run. It's developed a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. People who don't know what Broadway show to go to in New York hear the Phantom of the Opera, longest running show, and immediately assume that it means it is one of the best musicals ever written. Since people keep assuming this, the play keeps getting performed, therefore having an even longer running, etc. This leads to new shows on Broadway having larger financial troubles, since they don't draw in audiences due to no fault of their own besides being unknown. Imagine if people always watched the same movies. Would there be any reason for anyone to produce new movies? In today's society, it simply costs too much money to produce a new play with no history behind it, because all of the revivals and plays like Phantom. Sure, some revivals are good, but having half of the plays on Broadway be there for years just hurts new authors/composers.
Wicked is a continuation of this trend. While it is nowhere near the first musical to be based off non-original source material, it was certainly one of the first ones to make the transition that quickly. There was an eight year turn around, which isn't even counting the amount of transitional time it took to actually write it, which makes the turnaround even less. It featured the semi-mediocre styling of Steven Schwartz. I'll just put this in perspective. Schwartz has never won a Tony despite being eligible in multiple categories. This is in an industry where most plays are guaranteed to win one or two Tony's merely due to lack of competition. But people ate up Wicked, which pushed Broadway producers to embrace the new ability to take preexisting movies and books and mercilessly push them on the public, complete with subpar music and adaptation decay. It became more beneficial for up and coming authors to just right derivative works. But certainly it takes work to still orchestrate a hit musical, right?
I know that Rent came out before Wicked, but the constructive order works better this way. Rent proved to America that you don't need to worry about orchestration. Simply by combining a lot of poppy songs together with a limited pit, you could get financial success. I always held the unpopular belief that Jonathan Larson's body tried to get rid of him before it was too late. And this isnt' merely a matter of classical snobbery or sunk costs. The limited pit had limited musical range, but it didn't matter to producers. Now less musicians had to be hired. It also lacked any musical complexity. I've played piano for 10 years, and I could play the piano parts of Rent on BROADWAY without any trouble. I am not a concert pianist. I am not even a piano major. So now we have musical quality decay, bad enough on it's own, but the real floodgates had only just been opened. Jukebox musicals, disappeared for 70 or so years, now had the popularity to come back. A musical could be made out of the hits of Styx, Abba, an album by Green Day. And where does it end? These all have prior proved audiences, so no one needed to worry about filling seats. It didn't matter that these were loosely structured plots with the amount of arranging that I could do in an afternoon where I was actually physically forced to sit down.
All of the keys are in place to have a commercially profitable musical without taking any risks whatsoever. So as an audience who attends plays, are you going to help contribute to the problem and make musical writing an even less work stable job, or will you support original efforts, fully devoted to music and plot? Will you be the audience that helps bring fame to people like me or are you going to be the audience I have to fight against to get plays published.
Think about it.
Broadway today is in a serious decline, no thanks to any of the people who claim to like it. Despite it's glorious history, the current shell of the past is circling the drain of irrelevance. In general, I blame three musicals. Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, and Rent. Now at this point, people just think that I'm 'hating' on the popular musicals. However, none of these musicals are exceptionally good and the reason that Broadway is in serious decline is BECAUSE these are popular. I mean, if they were popular, but didn't affect anything, that would be a completely different matter.
Phantom of the Opera doesn't necessarily belong on here as much as the other offenders, because it isn't Andrew Lloyd Webber's fault. When we went to New York on a choir trip, we saw POTA and I even tossed aside some of my former resentment of it. However, the problem with Phantom is it's extremely long run. It's developed a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. People who don't know what Broadway show to go to in New York hear the Phantom of the Opera, longest running show, and immediately assume that it means it is one of the best musicals ever written. Since people keep assuming this, the play keeps getting performed, therefore having an even longer running, etc. This leads to new shows on Broadway having larger financial troubles, since they don't draw in audiences due to no fault of their own besides being unknown. Imagine if people always watched the same movies. Would there be any reason for anyone to produce new movies? In today's society, it simply costs too much money to produce a new play with no history behind it, because all of the revivals and plays like Phantom. Sure, some revivals are good, but having half of the plays on Broadway be there for years just hurts new authors/composers.
Wicked is a continuation of this trend. While it is nowhere near the first musical to be based off non-original source material, it was certainly one of the first ones to make the transition that quickly. There was an eight year turn around, which isn't even counting the amount of transitional time it took to actually write it, which makes the turnaround even less. It featured the semi-mediocre styling of Steven Schwartz. I'll just put this in perspective. Schwartz has never won a Tony despite being eligible in multiple categories. This is in an industry where most plays are guaranteed to win one or two Tony's merely due to lack of competition. But people ate up Wicked, which pushed Broadway producers to embrace the new ability to take preexisting movies and books and mercilessly push them on the public, complete with subpar music and adaptation decay. It became more beneficial for up and coming authors to just right derivative works. But certainly it takes work to still orchestrate a hit musical, right?
I know that Rent came out before Wicked, but the constructive order works better this way. Rent proved to America that you don't need to worry about orchestration. Simply by combining a lot of poppy songs together with a limited pit, you could get financial success. I always held the unpopular belief that Jonathan Larson's body tried to get rid of him before it was too late. And this isnt' merely a matter of classical snobbery or sunk costs. The limited pit had limited musical range, but it didn't matter to producers. Now less musicians had to be hired. It also lacked any musical complexity. I've played piano for 10 years, and I could play the piano parts of Rent on BROADWAY without any trouble. I am not a concert pianist. I am not even a piano major. So now we have musical quality decay, bad enough on it's own, but the real floodgates had only just been opened. Jukebox musicals, disappeared for 70 or so years, now had the popularity to come back. A musical could be made out of the hits of Styx, Abba, an album by Green Day. And where does it end? These all have prior proved audiences, so no one needed to worry about filling seats. It didn't matter that these were loosely structured plots with the amount of arranging that I could do in an afternoon where I was actually physically forced to sit down.
All of the keys are in place to have a commercially profitable musical without taking any risks whatsoever. So as an audience who attends plays, are you going to help contribute to the problem and make musical writing an even less work stable job, or will you support original efforts, fully devoted to music and plot? Will you be the audience that helps bring fame to people like me or are you going to be the audience I have to fight against to get plays published.
Think about it.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
How to Write a Plot Outline
Lots of people scoff at the idea of plot outlines. That's because lots of people aren't getting their plays produced on Broadway. I'm not either, it's just taking the advice of most people isn't usually a recommendation. Now, as I'm pretty sure I've stated before, sometimes when you are writing, you just completely run out of steam about where the plot was going or what was happening between point A and B which makes you end up with a whole lot of nothing. When I'm writing a musical, I try to stick to the Corbin Plot Outline and deviate from there. Two acts of six scenes each roughly eight pages a piece. This is far more than you will probably need, but it's a nice rule of thumb to follow. You can have more scenes (that are shorter) or less scenes (don't have less scenes). Usually if you can get the first act long enough, the expected shortening of the second act is forgivable. I'll give you an example from my canceled play, how I set these up.
Act 1:
Scene 1:
Arthur and Roger's home as children. Introduction to family and the Ebony violin. Arthur's dad goes into the throngs of death. Roger tricks Arthur so that he can inherit the violin instead. (Age 15) Arthur gets Ivory violin instead.
Scene 2:
20 years later, Arthur as a professional violinist after a rehearsel one day gets kicked out by the concertmaster. He complains and stuff. Bow is broken by concertmaster.
Scene 3:
Arthur goes to a bar nearby where he meets up and coming vocalist,______ who seduces him and convinces him that he must get back into the orchestra so she can get a singing job.
Scene 4:
Arthur goes to Roger's house and tries to convince him to part with the Ebony. It ends up failing.
Scene 5:
Arthur goes back to the bar. _____ goads him into stealing it at whatever cost.
Scene 6:
Arthur tries to take the violin in the night from Roger. When Roger discovers this, Arthur kills him. He then uses it to take control of _______.
Act 2:
Scene 1:
Arthur has been using the violin to control _______. She threatens to turn him in. Arthur's mother comes and tells him that he must come to the funeral.
Scene 2:
Funeral scene. Arthur is arrested at the funeral.
Scene 3:
Prison. After meeting some of the inmates, Arthur tries to convince his mother to bring him a piece of the bow. He finds out he has been sentenced to death by hanging.
Scene 4:
Arthur cheats death by using the tightened rope as a string and the piece of ebony bow to play the haunting melody.
Scene 5:
Arthur returns to the orchestra with a violin that will fit the tone of the ensemble.
Scene 6:
Arthur finds ______ and he shows her how he has destroyed the ebony violin and combined it with the ivory, giving up all his control just for her.
Now you couldn't write a full play off of this, but it gives you the pacing so that you know how far each scene should move the plot. There is the climax right before Act 2 as necessary. Now all that you need to do is add side plots and flesh out your side characters. While this was only a rough sketch, when you're writing, it's a joy to have. All of the locations are kind of planned out and the length should be enough for a full length musical. This is the importance of having an outline.
I apologize for the overall lameness of this post.
Act 1:
Scene 1:
Arthur and Roger's home as children. Introduction to family and the Ebony violin. Arthur's dad goes into the throngs of death. Roger tricks Arthur so that he can inherit the violin instead. (Age 15) Arthur gets Ivory violin instead.
Scene 2:
20 years later, Arthur as a professional violinist after a rehearsel one day gets kicked out by the concertmaster. He complains and stuff. Bow is broken by concertmaster.
Scene 3:
Arthur goes to a bar nearby where he meets up and coming vocalist,______ who seduces him and convinces him that he must get back into the orchestra so she can get a singing job.
Scene 4:
Arthur goes to Roger's house and tries to convince him to part with the Ebony. It ends up failing.
Scene 5:
Arthur goes back to the bar. _____ goads him into stealing it at whatever cost.
Scene 6:
Arthur tries to take the violin in the night from Roger. When Roger discovers this, Arthur kills him. He then uses it to take control of _______.
Act 2:
Scene 1:
Arthur has been using the violin to control _______. She threatens to turn him in. Arthur's mother comes and tells him that he must come to the funeral.
Scene 2:
Funeral scene. Arthur is arrested at the funeral.
Scene 3:
Prison. After meeting some of the inmates, Arthur tries to convince his mother to bring him a piece of the bow. He finds out he has been sentenced to death by hanging.
Scene 4:
Arthur cheats death by using the tightened rope as a string and the piece of ebony bow to play the haunting melody.
Scene 5:
Arthur returns to the orchestra with a violin that will fit the tone of the ensemble.
Scene 6:
Arthur finds ______ and he shows her how he has destroyed the ebony violin and combined it with the ivory, giving up all his control just for her.
Now you couldn't write a full play off of this, but it gives you the pacing so that you know how far each scene should move the plot. There is the climax right before Act 2 as necessary. Now all that you need to do is add side plots and flesh out your side characters. While this was only a rough sketch, when you're writing, it's a joy to have. All of the locations are kind of planned out and the length should be enough for a full length musical. This is the importance of having an outline.
I apologize for the overall lameness of this post.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Word Choice in Lyrics
Wow, I really need to get back into the swing of article writing. Just a small preview of what's coming up:
Villains, Pt 2
Writing a Plot Outline
Musical Review: Avenue Q (But you'll have to wait after I see it in December)
If there is anything that you guys want to see, you should inform me, because then I can give relevant information, as opposed to topics that come up off the top of my head.
Now, word choice is a very important thing when dealing with writing music and lyrics for your musical. If I've noticed anything in real life, it's that most people lack any semblance of rhythm and flow. Just look anytime someone makes parody lyrics to something off the top of their head. And some people are just downright terrible at TRYING to rhyme as well. As a writer, there are a few things you need to avoid when writing lyrics.
1. The rhymes that people see from a mile away. Be and me and see, etc. They aren't always bad, but when they are the basis behind your melody, that's a no-no. Not completely bad by itself, but if the rest of your lyrics are mediocre at best, this does nothing to stem the tide.
2. Extremely cliche topics and things. People will say love is cliche and it might be, but it's a different kind of cliche. It's such an acceptable concept for a song, that people will just look the other way. But talking about your dreams as reaching HIGH into the SKY and things of that nature is terrible writing. This holds especially true for lines thrown into songs that don't totally have to do with the song. Yes, there is filler in lyrics too.
"Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood"
Shame on you if you recognized those lyrics. They aren't bad, because filler isn't bad. But it's also unique lyrics and imagery. I mean, I don't even think about comets on a daily basis. But if your filler, where you can talk about whatever and use whatever words you want is bad, then how can your song be any good.
3. Choosing words that don't really sound the way you think they do. I have this problem since I pronounce a bunch of words wrong, like projectile (Pruh-jek-tic-el). It sort of rhymes with bicycle the way I say it, and it isn't regional, so it sounds dumb. If I ever rhymed bicycle with projectile as a lyric, no one would understand it. Or rhyming out with rout in TSMGO.
There are some ways to fix your lyrics to make them thousands of times better.
1. Pick rhymes made up of multiple words or multisyllabic words. Since I'm fairly conceited, I'll post examples from my plays.
"He taught me dictation. He taught me many languages
To be the perfect secretary has its share of anguishes." (Ballad of Theylus Mignon)
"Here I sit, patiently
In hopes of admiralty" (The musical I'm working on now)
2. Pick similes and metaphors in your filler that you are unique. My example earlier from...that play is a good example. How about instead of talking about the frolic in the spring, pick the frolic at a carnival. I don't know, I even found it hard to think of cliche metaphors off the top of my head since they make me cringe.
3.Pick words that are unique to the lexicon of the character who is singing them. Mechanical people use mechanical terms, etc. This is also a good form of characterization.
4. Generally being clever in your word choice. Unless you are already clever, pick the tenth word that comes to your mind instead of the first.
I know someone is sitting out there right now saying "Why is this all about rhyming? What about those of us who are too good to rhyme?" Firstly, you are never too good to rhyme, and the words that take the most choosing are the ones that fall into the important positions, aka the rhyming spots. Haven't you ever noticed that if your rhyme is bad you rewrite the whole sentence, not just the last word. The choice of those other words doesn't matter as much.
Hopefully this helps you in your attempt to fill in those lines to your melody. Now I need to go write lyrics myself.
Villains, Pt 2
Writing a Plot Outline
Musical Review: Avenue Q (But you'll have to wait after I see it in December)
If there is anything that you guys want to see, you should inform me, because then I can give relevant information, as opposed to topics that come up off the top of my head.
Now, word choice is a very important thing when dealing with writing music and lyrics for your musical. If I've noticed anything in real life, it's that most people lack any semblance of rhythm and flow. Just look anytime someone makes parody lyrics to something off the top of their head. And some people are just downright terrible at TRYING to rhyme as well. As a writer, there are a few things you need to avoid when writing lyrics.
1. The rhymes that people see from a mile away. Be and me and see, etc. They aren't always bad, but when they are the basis behind your melody, that's a no-no. Not completely bad by itself, but if the rest of your lyrics are mediocre at best, this does nothing to stem the tide.
2. Extremely cliche topics and things. People will say love is cliche and it might be, but it's a different kind of cliche. It's such an acceptable concept for a song, that people will just look the other way. But talking about your dreams as reaching HIGH into the SKY and things of that nature is terrible writing. This holds especially true for lines thrown into songs that don't totally have to do with the song. Yes, there is filler in lyrics too.
"Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood"
Shame on you if you recognized those lyrics. They aren't bad, because filler isn't bad. But it's also unique lyrics and imagery. I mean, I don't even think about comets on a daily basis. But if your filler, where you can talk about whatever and use whatever words you want is bad, then how can your song be any good.
3. Choosing words that don't really sound the way you think they do. I have this problem since I pronounce a bunch of words wrong, like projectile (Pruh-jek-tic-el). It sort of rhymes with bicycle the way I say it, and it isn't regional, so it sounds dumb. If I ever rhymed bicycle with projectile as a lyric, no one would understand it. Or rhyming out with rout in TSMGO.
There are some ways to fix your lyrics to make them thousands of times better.
1. Pick rhymes made up of multiple words or multisyllabic words. Since I'm fairly conceited, I'll post examples from my plays.
"He taught me dictation. He taught me many languages
To be the perfect secretary has its share of anguishes." (Ballad of Theylus Mignon)
"Here I sit, patiently
In hopes of admiralty" (The musical I'm working on now)
2. Pick similes and metaphors in your filler that you are unique. My example earlier from...that play is a good example. How about instead of talking about the frolic in the spring, pick the frolic at a carnival. I don't know, I even found it hard to think of cliche metaphors off the top of my head since they make me cringe.
3.Pick words that are unique to the lexicon of the character who is singing them. Mechanical people use mechanical terms, etc. This is also a good form of characterization.
4. Generally being clever in your word choice. Unless you are already clever, pick the tenth word that comes to your mind instead of the first.
I know someone is sitting out there right now saying "Why is this all about rhyming? What about those of us who are too good to rhyme?" Firstly, you are never too good to rhyme, and the words that take the most choosing are the ones that fall into the important positions, aka the rhyming spots. Haven't you ever noticed that if your rhyme is bad you rewrite the whole sentence, not just the last word. The choice of those other words doesn't matter as much.
Hopefully this helps you in your attempt to fill in those lines to your melody. Now I need to go write lyrics myself.
Monday, September 21, 2009
A List of Musicals I've Seen, Been In, Etc.
Last updated, March 28th, 2010.
Here just for future reference to myself and anyone reading this, I'm going to list the musicals I have seen and in what capacities.
Broadway/Off-Broadway:
Wicked
Phantom of the Opera
Mary Poppins
Avenue Q (At the Lied)
South Pacific (At the Lied)
Chanhassen (It's a dinner theatre in Minnesota):
My Fair Lady
State Fair
Brigadoon
Beauty and the Beast
Camelot
Cats
Performed In:
Kilroy Was Here
Music Man
Gone With the Breeze
Fiddler on the Roof
Beauty and the Beast
Other Live Shows:
Sound of Music (MHS Production)
Bernice Bobs Her Hair (UNL Production)
Movies:
The Producers
Fiddler on the Roof
Camelot
Hairspray
(Moulin Rouge)
Sound of Music
Music Man
Bye Bye Birdie
Sweeney Todd
Jesus Christ Superstar
Unsinkable Molly Brown
West Side Story
Company
I think this list is fairly accurate. Some of the older movies and Chanhassen plays I can barely remember, hence why I don't use them as examples very often.
Here just for future reference to myself and anyone reading this, I'm going to list the musicals I have seen and in what capacities.
Broadway/Off-Broadway:
Wicked
Phantom of the Opera
Mary Poppins
Avenue Q (At the Lied)
South Pacific (At the Lied)
Chanhassen (It's a dinner theatre in Minnesota):
My Fair Lady
State Fair
Brigadoon
Beauty and the Beast
Camelot
Cats
Performed In:
Kilroy Was Here
Music Man
Gone With the Breeze
Fiddler on the Roof
Beauty and the Beast
Other Live Shows:
Sound of Music (MHS Production)
Bernice Bobs Her Hair (UNL Production)
Movies:
The Producers
Fiddler on the Roof
Camelot
Hairspray
(Moulin Rouge)
Sound of Music
Music Man
Bye Bye Birdie
Sweeney Todd
Jesus Christ Superstar
Unsinkable Molly Brown
West Side Story
Company
I think this list is fairly accurate. Some of the older movies and Chanhassen plays I can barely remember, hence why I don't use them as examples very often.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
How To Make A Villain Part 1: Types of Villains
Now, you don't always need a villain in a musical. The Producers doesn't have a villain. Still, most people enjoy either playing or watching villains and they are the most concrete form of conflict for your protagonist. I mean, face it, look at any movie where weather was the enemy. How seriously boring and unmotivated was it to you? Self-conflict is cool in movies, but have you ever watched someone on stage do it? It seriously sucks. In my opinion at least. There are three types of villains.
Type I Villains:
You don't want a Type I Villain. Type I's are the people who are only villains because our main characters are deviates from society. Look at Benjamin from Rent. He's the villain, because he wants to make the people who live in his building pay rent like normal members of society. We're supposed to feel bad that he's kicking the main characters out, but if this situation ever happened in real life, who would we really side with? I don't care that they weren't supposed to be paying rent out of Benny's kindness, but get over it. Actually, it isn't even the Rent. It's just that he isn't as poor as they are. Whenever I think of Type I Villains, I also think of this comic:
. Basically, the reason you don't want a TI is because reasonable people sometimes side with them over the protagonists. And if you're going to have a villain, you want people to side with the protagonist.
Type II Villains:
These are the middle ground. These are the villains who aren't necessarily malicious, but misguided or just wrong. Anything based around a war, the enemy general will fall into this category (minus battles with Hitler). Or anyone who is doing something for the greater good, science, or anything like that, and you as the audience can legitimately feel like they're not too far off. This isn't always the case, as you see with about anyone who does things for the sake of nature. These villains are usually well received by audiences and actors alike, since they can sort of empathize, while still being a strong character.
Type III Villains:
This is where all of the villains from the musicals I've written fall into place. Any character who is either completely insane or is so immoral and self serving that they will do anything despite the social acceptability. Rutherford Wilson? A bully who tries to get revenge on one of his former victims after the victim retaliates. In doing so, he attempts to pit two crime lords against each other in order to oversee their downfall as well as Theylus's death. And don't even get me started on Triptuk and Barnesly from Jamoddysey. Anyone seen the Dark Knight? The Joker well falls into this category. These are the funnest characters to act, due to their melodramatic attitudes. The audience loves to hate them. No one will ever remember them as remarkably deep characters, but that doesn't matter.
Before you really get into making your villain, you need to decide what category of villain you want. In the next part of the series, I'll tell you how to build the necessary backstory and personality of your villain.
Type I Villains:
You don't want a Type I Villain. Type I's are the people who are only villains because our main characters are deviates from society. Look at Benjamin from Rent. He's the villain, because he wants to make the people who live in his building pay rent like normal members of society. We're supposed to feel bad that he's kicking the main characters out, but if this situation ever happened in real life, who would we really side with? I don't care that they weren't supposed to be paying rent out of Benny's kindness, but get over it. Actually, it isn't even the Rent. It's just that he isn't as poor as they are. Whenever I think of Type I Villains, I also think of this comic:
. Basically, the reason you don't want a TI is because reasonable people sometimes side with them over the protagonists. And if you're going to have a villain, you want people to side with the protagonist.Type II Villains:
These are the middle ground. These are the villains who aren't necessarily malicious, but misguided or just wrong. Anything based around a war, the enemy general will fall into this category (minus battles with Hitler). Or anyone who is doing something for the greater good, science, or anything like that, and you as the audience can legitimately feel like they're not too far off. This isn't always the case, as you see with about anyone who does things for the sake of nature. These villains are usually well received by audiences and actors alike, since they can sort of empathize, while still being a strong character.
Type III Villains:
This is where all of the villains from the musicals I've written fall into place. Any character who is either completely insane or is so immoral and self serving that they will do anything despite the social acceptability. Rutherford Wilson? A bully who tries to get revenge on one of his former victims after the victim retaliates. In doing so, he attempts to pit two crime lords against each other in order to oversee their downfall as well as Theylus's death. And don't even get me started on Triptuk and Barnesly from Jamoddysey. Anyone seen the Dark Knight? The Joker well falls into this category. These are the funnest characters to act, due to their melodramatic attitudes. The audience loves to hate them. No one will ever remember them as remarkably deep characters, but that doesn't matter.
Before you really get into making your villain, you need to decide what category of villain you want. In the next part of the series, I'll tell you how to build the necessary backstory and personality of your villain.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
When Salvaging A Scrapped Musical
Ever since my last musical I wrote, I have been starting and failing to finish musicals. There are a few things that should make you drop a musical sooner than later.
1. It's Scene 2 and you are already sick of your characters. Sometimes I've made brilliant plots and characters, but after a while, they just start to rag on you. If you get sick of your characters, you can be almost positive that your audience will.
2. You realize that you didn't craft the plot carefully and you don't have enough stuff to happen between the beginning and end. Sometimes filler can fix this, but most of the time you want to AVOID filler, so when you have half a play without filler, you would be better off starting over, do some serious replot structuring, or just dropping it.
3. Whatever was motivating you to write this specific musical stops being an influence.
Regardless, a lot of the time when you scrap a musical, there are lots of beautiful parts that you just can't chuck in the trash. This article goes through each category and what you should and shouldn't keep.
(By the way this is assuming you are starting a new play. I put mine on infinite hiatus, which is different. Infinite hiatus is like "Oh, hey. I like the plot, I just don't like it right now..." I'll explain the difference in some of these categories)
PLOT:
It's really hard to salvage a plot by starting a new musical. In fact, it doesn't really make any sense. I put mine on infinite hiatus, which is different. Infinite hiatus is like "Oh, hey. I like the plot, I just don't like it right now..." Usually this is when you rewrite a plot later on. You can salvage some scenes and situations, but those probably were pretty loosely held by your original plot anyway. There isn't a lot you can do here besides take the same story and try again.
CHARACTERS:
Characters are so easy to salvage it isn't even funny. I had the first female admiral in the British Navy, Oliver Brown (not real) in three of my failed plays. Anything during that time period could conceivably involve her and it usually did. Names are something nice to salvage. I don't know about you, but I don't like to reuse names, so any name that I can use I will. Also some archetypes (Magician, pirate, etc.) can be reused if you had some great ideas for some sideplots involving them.
I know that if I ever scrap The Show Must Not Go On, I'm combing it for lines to use first. "Even gold has standards"? I got shivers up my spine when I wrote that. Maybe because I was sick, but still! Usually dialogue is like plot ("So Theylus, are you glad that you didn’t off yourself?") are contextually stuck in their original work. But you would be well advised to take your most golden lines. But you know what they say about gold...
MUSIC:
Much like dialogue and plot, lyrics are not salvageable. But melody lines totally are. And even some songs are too. I'm definitely including "Pennsylvania, It's The Best State" in one of my shows. The setting will just...have to be in Pennsylvania.
THEME:
You can always salvage your themes. Themes are universal and don't apply to one work alone. I mean, most of the time the subconscious theme is what's going to make you STOP writing a musical, but whatever. Oops. I didn't say that? Think for a minute about whatever work you just scrapped. Were you getting too involved with your own theme? Nod your head yes, because it's probably true. I mean, the above three reasons also happen sometimes, but the theme is the make it or break it. You most likely got too worried over if it presented gender plights or racial acceptance to bother to continue writing what flows in your mind.
As you can see, scrapping a musical isn't the end of the world or the end of your work. Every musical you write, failed or not, helps contribute to your overall writing ability.
1. It's Scene 2 and you are already sick of your characters. Sometimes I've made brilliant plots and characters, but after a while, they just start to rag on you. If you get sick of your characters, you can be almost positive that your audience will.
2. You realize that you didn't craft the plot carefully and you don't have enough stuff to happen between the beginning and end. Sometimes filler can fix this, but most of the time you want to AVOID filler, so when you have half a play without filler, you would be better off starting over, do some serious replot structuring, or just dropping it.
3. Whatever was motivating you to write this specific musical stops being an influence.
Regardless, a lot of the time when you scrap a musical, there are lots of beautiful parts that you just can't chuck in the trash. This article goes through each category and what you should and shouldn't keep.
(By the way this is assuming you are starting a new play. I put mine on infinite hiatus, which is different. Infinite hiatus is like "Oh, hey. I like the plot, I just don't like it right now..." I'll explain the difference in some of these categories)
PLOT:
It's really hard to salvage a plot by starting a new musical. In fact, it doesn't really make any sense. I put mine on infinite hiatus, which is different. Infinite hiatus is like "Oh, hey. I like the plot, I just don't like it right now..." Usually this is when you rewrite a plot later on. You can salvage some scenes and situations, but those probably were pretty loosely held by your original plot anyway. There isn't a lot you can do here besides take the same story and try again.
CHARACTERS:
Characters are so easy to salvage it isn't even funny. I had the first female admiral in the British Navy, Oliver Brown (not real) in three of my failed plays. Anything during that time period could conceivably involve her and it usually did. Names are something nice to salvage. I don't know about you, but I don't like to reuse names, so any name that I can use I will. Also some archetypes (Magician, pirate, etc.) can be reused if you had some great ideas for some sideplots involving them.
I know that if I ever scrap The Show Must Not Go On, I'm combing it for lines to use first. "Even gold has standards"? I got shivers up my spine when I wrote that. Maybe because I was sick, but still! Usually dialogue is like plot ("So Theylus, are you glad that you didn’t off yourself?") are contextually stuck in their original work. But you would be well advised to take your most golden lines. But you know what they say about gold...
MUSIC:
Much like dialogue and plot, lyrics are not salvageable. But melody lines totally are. And even some songs are too. I'm definitely including "Pennsylvania, It's The Best State" in one of my shows. The setting will just...have to be in Pennsylvania.
THEME:
You can always salvage your themes. Themes are universal and don't apply to one work alone. I mean, most of the time the subconscious theme is what's going to make you STOP writing a musical, but whatever. Oops. I didn't say that? Think for a minute about whatever work you just scrapped. Were you getting too involved with your own theme? Nod your head yes, because it's probably true. I mean, the above three reasons also happen sometimes, but the theme is the make it or break it. You most likely got too worried over if it presented gender plights or racial acceptance to bother to continue writing what flows in your mind.
As you can see, scrapping a musical isn't the end of the world or the end of your work. Every musical you write, failed or not, helps contribute to your overall writing ability.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
