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Elements of a Musical

The Book (Libretto)

by John Kenrick

(Copyright 2000, Revised 2020)

What is "The Book"?

The book (or libretto) is the script, the narrative structure that keeps the score from being nothing more than a disjointed medley of songs. It is the drama at the heart of every musical. 

In the early 20th Century, the main point of most musicals was to showcase a score and/or a major star. The books of these Broadway musicals were a series of scenes, jokes and sight gags designed to just get from song to song. As long as the script provided excuses for Al Jolson to sing or Marilyn Miller to dance, theatergoers were satisfied. By the 1940s, audiences were ready for something more substantial, and shows like Pal Joey, Lady In the Dark and Oklahoma! made it imperative that the book and score interweave to tell a cohesive story. Now for a performer to stop the show, the action had to build up to a key moment of song and/or dance. This made for much more satisfying entertainments.

Musicals with great scores and weak books tend to fail, while those with mediocre scores and solid books have a better chance of succeeding. After all, the first job of every play or film – musical or not – is to tell a good story.

Key Book Elements

A musical book has to:

And all this must be done within a script that seems skeletal compared to a full length drama. At least fifty percent of a musical's running time belongs to the songs and dances. Small wonder that so few playwrights are willing to attempt musical librettos – they are a separate art form.

Adaptations

A few successful musicals (The Drowsy Chaperone) use 100% original stories. Most are adapted from novels (Les Miserables, The King & I), plays (Oklahoma, Hello Dolly) or films (A Little Night Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie). Others are inspired by historical figures (Rex, George M) or events in the headlines (Call Me Madam, Capeman). When selecting a story for adaptation, the creative team must first determine that music will add to the effectiveness of the story. Not all stories sing, and relentlessly tragic tales are better suited to grand opera. The main requirement is a story that allows characters to experience a wide range of emotions. It is in the transitions from hope to joy to despair to (hopefully) final triumph that characters can find something to sing about.

So why turn an already effective story into a musical? Since time immemorial people have found it easier to connect with sentiments set to music. Songs help audiences quickly relate to characters. Murder mysteries and French farces usually do not make good material for musical adaptation because many of their characters are plot functions, not individuals we need to care about. The Mystery of Edwin Drood does not disprove my point – in the end we learn that Edwin is not dead, so it this delightful musical is not really a murder mystery!

Getting historical figures to sing can be tricky, since many in the audience approach famous characters with pre-conceptions. 1776 successfully made John Adams and Thomas Jefferson sing, in part because American audiences were predisposed to like them. (London audiences loathed the same show, forcing it to close in just a few weeks.) Henry VIII's murderous marital habits made him desperately unlikable in Rex, but such popular figures as Jackie Robinson, Marilyn Monroe and Teddy Roosevelt all inspired flop musicals.

Originals

Successful musicals with truly original stories are rare. In part, it is easier to interest producers and potential investors in a story with proven appeal -- such as a hit movie. In recent decades, approximately nine out of ten successful musicals have been based on pre-existing books, historic events, plays or films. Some musicals people think of as completely original were actually adaptations. Company was based on a series of existing one act plays by librettist George Furth. And, despite Alan Jay Lerner's denials, Brigadoon was based (at least partially) in part on Friedrich Gerstacker's German tale Germelshausen.

Some examples of how original story ideas were hatched for hit musicals –

Scene Structure

As in non-musical plays, the ending of each scene in a book musical has to project the action forward, pointing the audience's interest into the scenes to come. Since good showtunes often capture a moment of transition, realization or decision, a song (or a brief reprise) is often used to bring scenes to a close. This is why librettists must work in close collaboration with composers and lyricists to determine where songs fit and how to get into song as seamlessly as possible. Audiences now cringe at obvious song cues ("Tell us about it, Jane.") Ideally, the book and score should be written simultaneously, rather than have either one built entirely around the other.

Ending Act One

The modern musical is almost always written in a two-act format. Audiences are accustomed to it, and intermission sales (refreshments, souvenirs) provide theatre owners with crucial income. An audience forced to sit for hours is tougher to entertain -- if you don't give audiences a pee break, they will take one in the middle of crucial scenes! Those who write a one or three act show can rest assured that others will eventually re-format it to two acts. (This fact of life has plagued the authors of Man of La Mancha, which is written in one-act but is frequently performed with an unauthorized intermission). If nothing else, intermissions force book writers to make sure the story gets somewhere by a reasonable point – and make an audience care enought to come back for Act Two. The first act does not have to end with a cliff-hanger, but we should be very curious to see what happens next. Examples:

If you have not hooked an audience before intermission time, you have a flop on your hands  This holds true with stage adaptations of screen musicals, because screenplays are traditionally written in a three act form. The Broadway version of Meet Me In St. Louis turned "The Trolley Song" into a dream sequence, robbing it of any significance, raising no questions and doing nothing to point to the next act. The stage version of State Fair ended with "It's a Grand Night for Singing" – a great song, but one that did nothing to set up what lay ahead. Both shows failed despite classic songs, primarily because their cinematic story lines did not adapt well to the two-act stage format. In contrast, 42nd Street brilliantly reshaped its content to a two act format, and has enjoyed repeated success in New York and London.

Ending Act Two

The end of Act Two is even more important. It is what audiences walk out with, and a powerful final scene can make up for some shortcomings earlier in the show. Having a great song helps – many musicals reprise one of their best – but the book writer must structure the play so that the last scene packs a genuine wallop.

Check a dozen of your favorite musicals, and you will find that most offer a solid dramatic or comic kick as part of the finale.

Rewrites

All writers had better like rewriting! It is the nature of creation that one has to reshape and polish one's work. This is especially true when a writer has to appease the army of collaborators involved in a musical. With the exception of Kiss Me Kate, every musical that ever opened out of town (or in New York previews) required book revisions. Some problems do not become evident until a show gets on its feet in front of paying audiences.

When a musical is in pre-opening performances, two issues are paramount –

A Thankless Task

When a show is in trouble, it is easiest for those working on a show to blame the book. It costs amazing amounts of time and money to add new songs or replace cast members, while changing the book simply means ordering the author to cut or revise. I once worked on a new musical (which shall go nameless) that was having a disastrous pre-Broadway tour. The score sucked, the director was inexperienced and the big-name star was hilariously miscast – but everyone insisted that the book was the problem. Baloney! The book was probably one of the best things that show had going for it. Thankfully, the show closed out of town, leaving the book writer's reputation intact for better projects.

Now that many musicals are virtually sung through, librettists are less appreciated than ever. The international hit Phantom of the Opera is often thought of as the work of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, while librettist Richard Stilgoe is practically unknown outside of his own family. (Of course, the same can be said for Phantom's lyricist, Charles Hart.) In sung-through musicals like this one, where does the book writing end and the lyric writing begin? There is no set answer – it varies from team to team and show to show.

The book writer gets feint praise if a show succeeds, and deafening blame if it fails. Librettist Peter Stone got mixed reviews for 1776, Woman of the Year, Will Rogers Follies and Titanic – and received Tony Awards for each! So it is not surprising that good librettists are few. Most of the dramatists who might once have worked in musical theatre take their talents to television. Who can blame them? When writing for a sitcom can bring a six-figure annual salary, why spend years writing a musical that may never make a cent? And yet, the madness still infects a few. Those of us who love musicals keep our fingers crossed and hope that fresh crops of solid librettists will continue to appear.

With the book and score accounted for, who has to come on board to make a musical happen?

On to: Key Players - Who Does What?