Presto-Chango
August 21, 2022 4:37 PM Subscribe
I wrote a play, based on my book, "PLEDGE: The Public Radio Fund Drive," that ended up being 139 pages or a little over 2 1/2 hours with intermission. But I thought it would work better as a musical. So a composer and I found each other and for the last 16 months, we've been collaborating on songs. I've read there are plays, plays with music and musicals. I'd thought I might create the play with music. But it hasn't worked out like that and I need help.
She has finished the all songs but the last one (20 of 21), and I've started incorporating them into the book. But I've realized that to prevent the dialogue from repeating the lyrics, and to help the show move a little faster, I need to cut and cut and CUT! I knew there would be editing, but to get 139 pages w/o music to, she says, a necessary 90-ish with music, I didn't know I would have to rethink almost all of their spoken lines.
Is there a guide for helping me work thru this, or am I really looking at rewriting dialogue almost entirely?
The "play" without music was part of the Portland Area Theater Association's "Fertile Ground" 2022 festival, and my show, "PLEDGE The Musical," was highlighted on YouTube with their other offerings. I also described it in Metafilter Projects. If you happen to watch a little of it, maybe you can advise me, or lead me to some advice for fixing this problem.
She has finished the all songs but the last one (20 of 21), and I've started incorporating them into the book. But I've realized that to prevent the dialogue from repeating the lyrics, and to help the show move a little faster, I need to cut and cut and CUT! I knew there would be editing, but to get 139 pages w/o music to, she says, a necessary 90-ish with music, I didn't know I would have to rethink almost all of their spoken lines.
Is there a guide for helping me work thru this, or am I really looking at rewriting dialogue almost entirely?
The "play" without music was part of the Portland Area Theater Association's "Fertile Ground" 2022 festival, and my show, "PLEDGE The Musical," was highlighted on YouTube with their other offerings. I also described it in Metafilter Projects. If you happen to watch a little of it, maybe you can advise me, or lead me to some advice for fixing this problem.
Based on my (tiny) experience working with an award-winning screenwriter who was helping with the script for a Broadway musical: yes, you should be cutting massively. For a full-blown musical, every word in the songs has to be as important in terms of character, tone, conflict, motivation, etc. as every word in the non-musical script. Basically, if you cut out the songs, the remaining script should be incomplete and incomprehensible as a standalone.
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:10 PM on August 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:10 PM on August 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Point of clarification: did you commission 21 songs, or did the composer go through the script and decide that 21 songs were necessary?
posted by kevinbelt at 5:14 PM on August 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 5:14 PM on August 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is a wild overstatement and there are exceptions, but in a good musical the music should be integral. As much as possible the songs should be doing character and plot work, and having them replace huge chunks of your dialogue sounds exactly right. If the songs are doing their work, you don't need nearly as much of the stuff surrounding them.
A lot of people who want to go to a musical - which a 20-odd song play definitely is - will see dialogue scenes as mostly something they have to sit through to get to the songs, which are the thing they actually care about.
Your musical is a fundamentally different beast than your straight play, and ruthless cutting and rewriting is probably a big part of what you need to do. That said, presumably there's some room for ongoing work with your collaborator here if you think some things will work better as dialogue and would like to move them back out of the music.
posted by Stacey at 5:34 PM on August 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
A lot of people who want to go to a musical - which a 20-odd song play definitely is - will see dialogue scenes as mostly something they have to sit through to get to the songs, which are the thing they actually care about.
Your musical is a fundamentally different beast than your straight play, and ruthless cutting and rewriting is probably a big part of what you need to do. That said, presumably there's some room for ongoing work with your collaborator here if you think some things will work better as dialogue and would like to move them back out of the music.
posted by Stacey at 5:34 PM on August 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: kevinbelt, before I started looking for a composer but after I'd thought about transforming the play into a musical, I originally thought the show would be best described with the help of about 26 songs. She and I cut it down to 21.
posted by CollectiveMind at 6:35 PM on August 21, 2022
posted by CollectiveMind at 6:35 PM on August 21, 2022
This article describes how one musical (Oklahoma) integrated music with the script like you are attempting to do, and touches on the functions of different types of songs within the musical structure.
https://larryavisbrown.com/dramatic-function-of-songs-in-musicals/
To paraphrase Bob Fosse, when the emotions are too much for words the characters sing, and when they are to much for song the characters dance. In other words, the words, songs, and dance are passing the story back and forth throughout the whole thing, reinforcing the story but not repeating it.
posted by rakaidan at 6:48 PM on August 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
https://larryavisbrown.com/dramatic-function-of-songs-in-musicals/
To paraphrase Bob Fosse, when the emotions are too much for words the characters sing, and when they are to much for song the characters dance. In other words, the words, songs, and dance are passing the story back and forth throughout the whole thing, reinforcing the story but not repeating it.
posted by rakaidan at 6:48 PM on August 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Maybe this bit advice I got as a musical theatre performer a long, long time ago will help: Characters start singing because words alone are not enough.
posted by feistycakes at 6:56 PM on August 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by feistycakes at 6:56 PM on August 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
For my money, it's hard to find a better example of songs integrated into the text than Oklahoma!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:19 PM on August 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:19 PM on August 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
you to have to cut and rewrite vast tracts of spoken words in order to properly thread together the songs.
This. Musical numbers contribute massively to plot/character development and can effectively remove the need for so much wordy exposition. They're magical in how they can take you out of time, out of place, and allow a visual or aural experience to replace the need for the audience to sit there and mentally process a lot of spoken words. In just a few seconds, a musical number can convey a change of direction, a new situation, a motivation, a desire, practically anything that's needed.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:21 AM on August 22, 2022
This. Musical numbers contribute massively to plot/character development and can effectively remove the need for so much wordy exposition. They're magical in how they can take you out of time, out of place, and allow a visual or aural experience to replace the need for the audience to sit there and mentally process a lot of spoken words. In just a few seconds, a musical number can convey a change of direction, a new situation, a motivation, a desire, practically anything that's needed.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:21 AM on August 22, 2022
And you also may find that some of the musical numbers need judicious pruning, too. It can be hard to tell until you start workshopping.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:43 AM on August 22, 2022
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:43 AM on August 22, 2022
Yeah, I am involved with a production of a new musical right now and even whole storylines have been getting cut or drastically pruned during the preview run. With 20 songs, you are going to want them to really move the story forward if you can, but also a musical generally takes a much longer time to tell a story than a straight play (or movie) does. Think about the (original) movie "The Producers" - it ran 88 minutes. The movie musical is 134 minutes. They tell basically the same story. It may not be realistic to get the full 2 1/2 hours of storylines from your play into a musical even if the songs do a lot of the lifting.
posted by mskyle at 4:58 PM on August 22, 2022
posted by mskyle at 4:58 PM on August 22, 2022
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