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Event Details
  • How to Write a Musical, part 3 ... submit now!
    August 5, 2018
    10:00 am - 6:00 pm
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FEEDBACK WORKSHOP #3: RECKONING AND RESOLUTION

PART 3: RECKONING AND RESOLUTION
Studios 353, 353 W. 48th Street, 2nd floor

Sunday, August 5th, 10am to 6:00pm
(Download application: TRUBeginnings-HWM3-app)

This 3-part workshop is dedicated to fostering a conversation about musical theater structure not only for writers but also for producers, directors and everyone involved in the creation and production of new works. "Part 3: Reckoning and Resolution" will focus on the last scenes of a musical and how songs help resolve the story and the characters' journeys. Up to ten teams will present a song and scene from their shows to a professional panel of commercial producers, directors and writers, including:  

  • Pat Addiss, producer (Desperate Measures, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, A christmas Story, Buyer and Cellar, Spring Awakening, Promises Promises);
  • Cheryl Davis, Kleban and Larsen Award winning librettist and lyricist (Barnstormer), Audelco Award winning playwright (Maid's Door);
  • Peter Filichia, theater reviewer, author of six books on musicals, including Let's Put on a Musical!;
  • Skip Kennon, composer/lyricist (Herringbone, Don Juan DeMarco, Time and Again), former artistic coordinator of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and teacher for two decades;
  • Jim Morgan, producing artistic director The York Theatre.

Bob Ost, executive director of Theater Resources Unlimited, and TRU Literary Manager Cate Cammarata will facilitate.

We will focus on three main aspects of a show: 1) songs that express the resolution of a character's "want," or the overcoming of obstacles, and how it leads to a final choice; 2) "eleven o'clock numbers," the big dramatic show stopper that sums up the (usually) main character's journey; 3) the finale, an effective and emotionally satisfying way of concluding your story. We will discuss the function of songs, with special attention paid to the way they move the action. In addition, we will continually explore the delicate balance between script and song. 

Writers (or producers!) are invited to submit no more than 25 pages of a show you are working on. We want to see the last section of your show in which we head towards the summing up and conclusion of the plot and the resolution of the characters' wants. Include MP3s of the songs within only those pages. Also send a concise synopsis of the preceding action of the show, and how it leads to the resolution in the section presented.

Submission deadline: Wednesday, July 25th. Download application: TRUBeginnings-HWM3-app, fill it out, and email to TRUStaff1@gmail.com to sign up. This workshop is scheduled to run from 10am to 5:30pm with a lunch break, and brief end-of-day reception. Submission fee is $10 for TRU members, $20 for non-members. If accepted, it will be applied to a participation fee of $100 ($85 for TRU members). Prices are discounted for those who have taken previous parts of this workshop.

The cost for non-participants to attend for the full day, to observe the presentations and be part of the discussions, is $55 ($35 for TRU members). 

**If accepted, you will present 10-15 minutes including one song and scene, followed by about 15 minutes of feedback. There will be a participation fee of $100 ($80 for TRU members), which includes 2 seats for the entire day workshop as well as your presentation slot. Because space is limited, any additional attendees from the musical team (including music director, additional collaborators and cast members) who wish to observe the entire workshop must reserve in advance and will be charged a nominal $25 per person.

SCHEDULE

10 am to 10:15 am - check in.

10:15 to 11am - Discussion: How do you bring the action of your show to an effective dramatic (and musical) conclusion? Is resolution better served by song or by dialogue? Do all shows need a big "eleven o'clock" number, or are there other ways to leave an audience emotionally satisfied?

11:00 am to 1:30 pm - Five writing teams will explain their work’s overall concept (in 30 seconds or less) and present 10-15 minutes of a song and scene that demonstrates a resolution of the show's major conflict or a coming to terms for one of the characters, the resolution of their ongoing "want." After each presentation, panelists will provide feedback.

LUNCH BREAK
(On your own. Great time to make new friends in the industry!)

2:30 pm to 3:00 pm - 
Discussion: The dramatic journey of characters: how wants and goals may evolve over the course of a show. Panelists will comment and invite audience feedback.

3:00 pm to 5:30 pm
- Five writing teams will explain their work’s overall concept (in 30 seconds or less) and present 10-15 minutes of a song and scene that musicalizes the action leading to the resolution, or leads up to (and includes) a satisfying finale that leaves the audience with a sense of completion.

Panelists
  • CHERYL L. DAVIS

    received the Kleban Award as a librettist for her musical Barnstormer, (written with Douglas J. Cohen) about Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman flyer. The show received a Jonathan Larson Award through the Lark Play Development Center. Her play Maid’s Door received great reviews, won seven Audelco Awards, and was a finalist for the Francesca Primus Prize. Her play The Color of Justice (commissioned by Theatreworks/USA), received excellent reviews in the New York Times and Daily News, and tours regularly. Her musical Bridges, which was commissioned by the Berkeley Playhouse, received its world premiere in February 2016 to great reviews and three award nominations from the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. She received a Writers’ Guild Award for her work on “As the World Turns”, and was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award. Her work has been read and performed internationally, including at the Cleveland Play House, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the Kennedy Center.  She is the General Counsel of the Authors Guild.

  • PAT FLICKER ADDISS

    is a producer, most recently of Eclipsed (6 Tony noms). Other Broadway productions include A Christmas Story the Musical, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Promises, PromisesThe 39 StepsBridge & TunnelPassing StrangeSpring AwakeningChita Rivera: The Dancer's Life and Little Women. Off-Broadway: Buyer and CellarShout the Mod Musical and Housewives of Mannheim. She has produced several readings for the TRU Voices Series including SparksCheese, and the musical At the Back of the North Wind. Ms. Addiss served for many years on the board of Theater Resources Unlimited, and was the 2010 recipient of the TRU Spirit of Theater Award. Ms. Addiss is a member of The Broadway League. On the board of NJ Rep and the League of Professional Theatre Women, at present she is working on Vox Lumiere Phantom of the Opera off-Broadway, Loves of Picasso in London, and the solo show Top Drawer, and the hottest off Broadway show Desperate Measures at the York, and now at New World Stages. Her new venture is speaking to Women's Groups "How to Reinvent Yourself." 

     

  • PETER FILICHIA

    has spent most of his life writing about theater. He’s written reviews and features for a daily newspaper (The Star-Ledger), a magazine (TheaterWeek), and the Internet (Playbill, Theatermania, Music Theatre International, Broadway Select, Masterworks Broadway and Kritzerland). He’s authored six books on musicals. He’s been president of the Drama Desk Awards and now serves on its current nominating committee. Since 1995, he has been critic-in-residence for the Cincinnati-Conservatory of Music; the chairman of the Theatre World Awards, whose ceremony he annually writes and emcees; and the musical theater assessor for ASCAP’s annual awards. In 2009, he was chosen to be an assessor for the National Endowment for the Arts. On most Sunday evenings, he can be heard as a podcaster on Broadway Radio.
  • SKIP KENNON

    was the overall Artistic Coordinator of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and the teacher of the first year there for two decades. He wrote the music for the one-man musical Herringbone (Playwrights Horizons - starring David Rounds, Hartford Stage - starring Joel Grey, Edinburgh Festival, Philadelphia's Prince Music Theater, Chicago's St. Nicholas Theater, 2007 season opener at Williamstown Theater Festival - starring B.D. Wong), the music for Here's Our Girl (workshopped at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater), and the music and lyrics for the musical version of The Last Starfighter (Storm Theatre, Village Theatre Festival of New Musicals - summer 2006, New York Musical Theatre Festival readings - fall 2006), Blanco (Goodspeed Opera House at Chester, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, National Music Theater Network), Feathertop (WPA Theater, Pennsylvania Stage Co.), and Time and Again (Manhattan Theatre Club, San Diego's Old Globe Theater, Eugene O'Neill Center National Music Theater Conference). Kennon also wrote the music and lyrics for the one-act musical Plaisir d'Amour (book by Terrence McNally), which was produced at New York's Triangle Theater and seen in workshop at Circle Rep, as well as the music for the one-act musical Afternoon Tea (book & lyrics by Eduardo Machado), which was performed at Theater Row Theaters in 2005 by Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. He was a classical music critic at the Hollywood Reporter for five years.

  • CATE CAMMARATA

    is an Off-Broadway producer, director and dramaturg in NYC specializing in the development of new plays and musicals, and has been the Literary Manager for Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) for ten years. She is the Founder and Executive Producer of CreateTheater's New Works Festival and Artistic Director of The Experts Theater Company. Her company CreateTheater.com has developed and produced dozens of new plays and musicals since its founding in 2016. Off-Broadway: The Assignment, My Father's Daughter. Regional: My Life Is a Musical (Bay Street Theater), Bran Castle (Porchlight Theater). In development: Atlantis (book by Ken Cerniglia & Scott Morris, music & lyrics by Matthew Robinson), The Falling Season, a new hip hop musical by international hip hop legend Masta Ace,. During the shutdown of 2020-2022 CreateTheater developed and/or produced more than 70 shows with online readings, workshops and dramaturgical guidance. For this work Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) has honored her with the TRU Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2022. Cate holds a BFA in Acting/Directing from Syracuse University and an MFA in Dramaturgy at SUNY Stony Brook, and is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at CUNY Baruch College. Her book, "Contemporary Monologues for a New Theater," published by Applause Books, was listed as one of the Top Ten Books for theater lovers by BroadwayDirect in 2018. www.CateCammarata.com  www.CreateTheater.com

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