Theater

Today’s article is courtesy of Rebecca Burnham of Summit Stages. You can learn more about this innovative organization by clicking here.

How does one create a great musical? 

That’s a question that composers and librettists have been struggling to answer conclusively for more than a hundred years.  And nobody has quite nailed the exact recipe, at least, not in a way that can be replicated again and again by others. Partly because “great” is a subjective evaluation that we don’t all agree on. And partly, because even if we did agree, there’s often a mysterious element that makes the difference between a solid, entertaining show and a great one.

But there is one thing we do know – a great musical rests on a solid foundation. And the vast majority of musicals that have been widely embraced and celebrated share a common framework at their root. So, if you want to appreciate the art form of the musical, and especially if you want to tell a great story within it, it’s a good idea to learn about the basic framework. 

Broadway Offers Mixed Inspiration

This [article] is inspired by Jack Viertell’s Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built, a 336-page book that explores an overarching framework and how various famous shows have applied it, from Oklahoma to The Book of Mormon. I’m deeply indebted to it for all that it’s teaching me. But I also need to be honest. I don’t find Viertel’s book very accessible. It’s not that there was anything tricky about his prose. It’s that our values are so far out of sync that I find his musings frequently wearing, and I don’t even plan to watch many of the musicals on which he bases his examples. There’s wide agreement that they are masterpieces. But I can’t get past the outsized role that uncommitted sex plays in many of the storylines.

By my values, sexual relations outside of a committed partnership aren’t just inappropriate, they’re actively damaging, and I’m irritated by a story that celebrates them. Furthermore, for me the message is the cake while artistic excellence is just the frosting. I experience watching a musical that’s missing a powerful, edifying message as something like eating straight frosting. If sexual promiscuity or hedonistic values are thrown into the mix, I tend to see the show as something like gorgeously frosted dog food. 

Why does the craft matter? If the message is the cake and the artistic tricks surrounding it are just the frosting, then am I trying to focus attention on the fluff instead of the substance? 

It matters because oftentimes, it’s the frosting that draws you to the cake.

Cake-Decorating Analogy

As an amateur baker, I learned this important principle when I made a cake for my eldest son’s 7th birthday party. We were all Harry Potter fans, and he wanted a marble cake that looked like a cauldron. That seemed reasonably doable. I had a vision in my head, but no pattern, not even an Pinterest model or tutorial of what I was trying to achieve (although you can now find a good one here). And once it was baked, well… you kind of had to use your imagination to recognize the shape as a cauldron. I frosted it with chocolate buttercream and just a little black food coloring – not too much because too much of those gel food colorings can make your frosting taste like chemicals. So, it was brown-hued, not cast-iron black. I figured it was close enough. Then, I added some “magical potion” in its bowl: butterscotch pudding colored slightly green with some gummy worms floating on top. 

My son’s friends arrived for the party, and we had a great time. Then I brought out the cake, lit the candles, and we sang “Happy Birthday.” To my surprise, each of those 7-year-old guests politely declined their piece of cake. It just didn’t look right, and they didn’t dare try it. My five kids and I devoured it after they left. It was the best cake we’d ever tasted, but the guests hadn’t been willing to even take a bite. 

If I’d found and followed a pattern for that cauldron cake, I bet the guests would have devoured it in one sitting. If I’d used enough food coloring to make it look right, they would have all at least taken a piece, even if they’d have left half of it on their plates. 

Six years later, I made a glorious-looking cake for my youngest son’s 8th birthday. It featured a stream crafted from blue-colored candy melts and lined with rock candies. But I hadn’t checked the flavor of the blue “chocolate” before adding it to the cake. The finished product was beautiful. I cheerfully dished it up to our guests, who were eager for their pieces. And then I tasted it and discovered it was a disaster. We threw half of it away. 

You Don’t Have to Choose Between Enticing and Tasty

For a while after that, it seemed to my family that we had to choose between ugly cakes that were delicious, or gorgeous ones you could barely eat. We had learned that fondant frosting makes a professional-looking cake but tastes terrible. Buttercream looks more rough, but is edible for the first few bites until it becomes too much sugar. 

It didn’t seem like a reasonable trade-off, so we kept looking for better options until we learned about marshmallow fondant (which tastes many times better than the store-bought kind) and stabilized whipped cream (which can be piped like buttercream but isn’t sickeningly sweet) and sweetened, whipped cream cheese (pipeable and just plain delicious). Now the daughter who did all this research is the queen of making cakes that look too good to eat and taste too good to stop at one piece. 

A Great Show Is Both Enticing and Good for You

What does this have to do with the craft of musical theater? This: If you want to change the world with musicals that lift and unite, you want people to feel like they need to partake. You probably won’t win over the crowds you’re trying to reach by baking up a great story with some ho-hum tunes, functional dialogue, and a couple spots for choreography. 

It’s true that Broadway tends to use titillating content in order to gild a show and draw a crowd. That content is like store-bought fondant, poor quality candy melts, and food coloring that makes your frosting taste like chemicals. They’ll draw audiences and leave them with an aftertaste that robs your show of its healing power. But those aren’t the only tools for making a show supremely entertaining. They’re just the lazy ones. And if you can use better ingredients with more creativity while following a tried-and-true pattern, you can both fill the seats with eager audiences and reach their hearts. 

Rebecca Burnham

Rebecca Burnham writes a weekly newsletter about music and theatre that build Zion at SummitStages.org, where she is gathering a collaborative community of creators, producers, performers and playgoers to fill the world with musical theatre that lifts and unites. Her passion for the stage includes acting, directing, producing, and writing musicals which have been performed on various Canadian stages. A reforming veteran of the culture wars (as journalist, award-winning columnist, and pro-family activist), she’s now on a mission to build peace through connection across our divides and the skillful staging of shared stories.