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Special Musical Theatre Section Music& &Lyrics DAVID GRAPES For more than 30 years, the BMI workshop has been churning out the finest musical theatre writers, dispelling the popular myth that the art form is dying. By Brooke Pierce In the best of circumstances, when the lights go down and the curtain comes up at a Broadway musical, the audience is taken into a new world where it doesn’t seem at all unusual for characters to break into song. Music is such a seamless part of this world that the viewer suspends his or her disbelief and is effortlessly drawn in. However, creating that kind of world couldn’t be more difficult, as anybody who has ever tried to write a musical will tell you. Bringing the elements of story, music and lyrics perfectly together is a feat like no other. And every week at the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in midtown Manhattan, a select group of writers and musicians are learning to perform that miracle. Beginnings Start here More than 30 years ago, Tony-winning composer and conductor Lehman Engel partnered with BMI to create workshops that would help train aspiring musical theatre writers. “It’s a complicated craft, and there are few places nowadays where you can really study its intricacies,” says Masi Asare, who is currently in the Advanced Workshop. “The BMI workshop was highly recommended over and over again by working professionals as the place to learn how to write musicals.” There’s really nothing else out there quite like it: A place where dedicated, talented people can gather regularly to work on their craft, get feedback from their peers and theatre professionals — and for no charge whatsoever. It is competitive, though. There is an application process, in which interested parties submit a tape and/or sample lyrics. Finalists then audition in person. The workshop — or simply “BMI,” as participants and people in the theatre world usually refer to it — is perhaps best known as the place where great writing partnerships are created. Ragtime authors Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens started collaborating there. More recently, it is where Jeff Marx and Bobby Lopez first began writing their Broadway hit Avenue Q. A shot from a recent production of Titanic at University of Northern Colorado. Titanic was developed at BMI. “I had several musical ideas, which had been brewing a long time, but I didn’t know where to find a collaborator, so I thought BMI would be a great place to meet people in the community,” says lyricist Tom Gualtieri. There he met composer David Sisco, with whom he is currently working on two projects. The Structure Song “The first year of the workshop was structured into specific exercises and specific kinds of songs in their pure form: the ‘I Am’ or ‘I Want’ song, the ‘Charm Song,’ the ‘Comedy Song,’” explains Gualtieri. “Apparently these exercises have been in the workshop since its inception and are notoriously difficult. I found them to be some of the most successful and satisfying lyrics I have ever written.” “The most valuable thing I learned,” says Asare of her first two years in the workshop, “was that, for a character to sing in a musical, she has to want something really badly. In writing songs for musicals, we are working as musical dramatists. So we have to put the tools of melody, rhythm, harmonic structure, lyrical structure, tone and ‘singability’ to dramatic use. We have to use the tools of songwriting with the mindset of playwriting.” First-year participants who are considered sufficiently qualified are invited to come back for a second year, when they work on writing a full-length musical. At the end of the year, they present a portion of that musical, at which point selected members are asked to return to the Advanced Workshop. The Advanced Workshop is looser in structure. Rather than focusing on exercises, members sign up to present songs from their current projects and then receive feedback from the other members and the class moderator. “The trick is to have a really fantastic moderator who can synthesize the feedback from the class and sort of sum it up for you in a neat, concise package,” notes Asare. “Pat Cook and Rick Freyer, who teach the first and second year classes, are fantastic at this.” Several other dedicated individuals oversee this meeting 34 <strong>May</strong> 2007 • www.stage-directions.com
BRUCE GLIKAS/BROADWAY.COM NICK REUCHEL (Right to left) Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, composers of the Tony Award-winning smash Avenue Q. Jennifer Barnhart with Mrs. T in Avenue Q of the musical minds as well. After Lehman Engel himself passed away in 1982, many of the workshop participants became more heavily involved in running it — A Chorus Line lyricist Ed Kleban and Little Shop of Horrors tunesmith Alan Menken were two of the quickest to take up that task. These days, two of the most frequent guest moderators are Lynn Ahrens and composer/lyricist Maury Yeston (Titanic, Nine). “They are keen, sharp minds who can decipher your intention and give clear, constructive criticism or suggestions,” comments Gualtieri. In fact, these experienced pros sometimes go beyond just offering smart criticism and actually help the songwriters to reconstruct their songs for the better right on the spot. In addition to the famous names above, an impressive array of other notable composers and lyricists have come through the BMI workshop during its 30 years, including Carol Hall (The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas), Clark Gesner (You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown), Gerard Allesandrini (Forbidden Broadway), Michael John LaChiusa (Marie Christine, The Wild Party), Brian Crawley and Jeanine Tesori (Violet), Paul Scott Goodman (Bright Lights, Big City), and Andrew Lippa (jon and jen). Passing the Torchsong Seeing the talent on display at any given class, there is little doubt that many more fine musical theatre writers are about to emerge. Bookwriter/lyricist Ben Winters, whose musical Slut was produced Off-Broadway in 2005, has found the BMI experience valuable. An especially helpful exercise that he notes is “when we went through the plots and songs of famous or classic shows to see what made them tick.” Winters also singles out the usefulness of “talking with a lot of different people, with a lot of different perspectives, about the art form.” In addition to the “structure, discipline and the value of audience response” that Gualtieri cites as being the best aspect of BMI, the workshop also has other resources, such as its series of in-house cabarets aimed at exposing the work of aspiring songwriters to the theatre industry. They also offer awards such as the Jerry Bock Award, a monetary gift that allows the winner the opportunity to further work on a musical theatre project. Non-songwriters need not feel left out of all of this. Knowing that the book (or script) is the foundation on which a great musical is built, Lehman Engel also established a Librettists’ Workshop to nurture writers who want to focus on learning the complicated craft of musical scriptwriting. The librettists are also given the opportunity to collaborate with members of the songwriters’ workshop on assignments to further develop their skills and meet potential collaborators. With so much activity done in the name of creating better musical theatre, it’s no wonder that the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop has been heaped with praise lately. In 2006 alone, it was awarded a special Tony Award for Excellence in Theatre and a special Drama Desk Award. In a time when theatre struggles to compete with TV and film, the workshop is helping to pass on the musical theatre writing craft and tradition to new generations. Brooke Pierce is a freelance writer living in New York City. DAVID BILLS CONTACT Jean Banks Senior Director of Musical Theatre BMI 320 West 57th Street New York, NY 10036 212.830.2508 theatreworkshop@bmi.com Members of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and invited industry professionals gathered at BMI’s New York office for a presentation of new songs from the Workshop. www.stage-directions.com • <strong>May</strong> 2007 35
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