How Are Musicals Made?

From the same website as the last post there is an article on how Broadway shows were inspired and created. This is actually really interesting because, well, I was wondering how people come up with those stories, yeah? For some people it just comes to them (J.K. Rowling and her train) but apparently in the musical industry nothing actually gets written until a contract is signed and a commitment is made, which financially makes sense, I suppose. But either a producer gets an idea for a show and gets a creative team to expand on it, or a creative team will come up with an idea and find a producer to support it. Jon Kenrick then here gives examples of musicals that came into being and how so. Some producers came up with an idea and brought it to Broadway, sometimes performers had ideas that they pitched to producers. And then there's the traditional ideas that come from writers, composers, and directors.

But then, once you have the story, how do you get it onto the stage? No producer ever gambles millions backing new projects by unproven talents, but even well established names have trouble getting their creations staged. It takes years nowadays for a project to be finished to the point where it will be produced into something profitable, and then the odds are stacked very high against new projects coming to fruition.  John Kenrick pulls from his own experience as assistant to several Broadway producers, writing 'gently worded' rejection letters and seeing the vast majority get nowhere, although apparently it is fair, since the majority were terrible.

So what then does one do to get a musical in the works to work? Put it in a workshop, which can vary from a fully equipped theatre for full scale productions to a dusty rehearsal hall produced by the writers themselves. Workshops are used to build the creative team; directors might have colleagues to work with them on a regular basis that they'd like to use, but as the musical develops, so does the staff. That oft heard excuse of 'artistic differences' for cause of leaving is in fact often true, because if the team cannot get along the friction will hinder the process. They can also cast known actors or unknowns, known actors preventing them from having to train and deal with uncertain actors. Then Mr. Kenrick goes on and explains more ways that workshops get staged and how they benefit the production, so on and on.

Well it's interesting to see how these things are made. A musical might be the brain child of one person, but it takes a whole team to bring it about into something workable, because it seems that when just one person comes up with a potential musical, and submits it to a producer, chances are it's just not doable yet (or just really bad) because one person can only contribute so much. I don't think I really understood just how much effort and work and resources go into a musical. Seems to be a lot.
1) Do you think having so many ideas rejected by producers hurts a lot of potential chances for good, even great musicals?



Kenrick, J. (2000). Making a broadway musical. Retrieved from http://www.musicals101.com/make2.htm