Finished! Let's get started...

Back in February, I did a table read of my latest musical, The Distant Bells. I hate table reads. I love table reads. I love-hate table reads. I love them because it's an invaluable way to gain insight into a show I'm writing. Nothing helps me take a step back and focus on all pictures (big, little and everywhere in between) than sitting in a room and hearing actors read through the show. On top of that, it is the least difficult type of reading - rent a studio, call up some actors you know and away you go.

Which is why I hate table reads. Actors can easily sit down and read a part in a script without much preparation - well, many actors can. It won't be a nuanced and fully realized performance of course, but that's not the point of a table read. They can get through the show, bring something to it and help you see the characters in a different way - all by cold-reading the script with other actors. What actors can't do - even the most amazing, professional, talented and wonderful ones - is "cold-sing" a score they've never heard before. It would be...let's say "unfortunate" to try and most likely depressing to me, the actors and any passers-by in the hallway outside the studio.

But, love 'em or hate 'em, a table read is valuable - especially when the show is just not ready yet for a week-long reading or workshop.

So, after the table read in February, I suggested we set a self-imposed deadline of June 1st for another draft of the show incorporating all we learned from the table read and the things we already knew before it. A lot of things changed - and I mean a LOT of things! - between February and June 1st. It wasn't always easy nor did it always move forward quickly, but, we got to June 1st and we now have a draft which took us several significant steps forward from February.

Great! Finished! Crack open the champagne, get your suit tailored for opening night, kick back and enjoy! Right? right...?

Not quite.

Though I've been working on, outlining, plotting, writing and rewriting The Distant Bells off and on for just under two years now, the June 1st draft is really the "first draft" of the show. Oh, there have been many, many drafts before this one. But none that successfully realized the two separate but complimentary ideas for a musical (one mine, one the book writer's) which became the show I hope you'll all see on stage someday soon!

So, what DO I do when a draft is finished...well, a few days after this draft was done I did a reboot on the third song in the show. I didn't write a completely new song, but made big lyrical, tonal and musical changes to an existing one to set up the relationships between the characters better.

Yup - that's right, I'm finished with the first draft of The Distant Bells...which means it's time to get to work on the next draft...and the next draft...and the next draft...

Adaptation

Over the last few years, I've been asked to consider writing a few musicals which would have been adaptations - from books, movies, etc. Some I was excited about - the source material seemed rife with possibilities for musicalization. Others, I didn't see working out. As it turns out, I'm not working on any of those proposed projects, but I have thought alot lately about musicals that started out as something else.

I want to be clear on this from the start - I see nothing fundamentally wrong, bad or distasteful about a musical being adapted from another source. It's been going on for a long time and, when it is done well and wisely, it can lead to a really wonderful musical. In fact, one of my favorite musicals of all time, Little Shop of Horrors, was based on a movie. But in that oddball little show lies what I regard as the key to adaptations - imagination.

Take a look at the movie version of Little Shop of Horrors - certain characters and plot points will be familiar, but the musical is a very different animal from the movie - and that's a really, really good thing. It's not a good movie! The writers of the musical - Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman - were able to see imagine and create an entirely new musical world. If they had lacked imagination - or lacked sufficient imagination - they might never have written the show or, worse yet, they might have written a straight "musical version" of the film without adapting it at all! Horrors indeed!

There are other more recent examples of well-done adaptations, but there are also - as I'm sure you've noticed - plenty of examples where it didn't go so well. Writing a musical is never easy, but, when it comes to adaptations, it sure is easier to regurgitate a movie on stage with some songs thrown in. It might even be successful - depending on how you measure success that is. (Sadly, laziness is no guarantee of failure nor is imagination a guarantee of success!) But when laziness trumps imagination, we get lazy shows, lazy producers, lazy actors and, eventually, uniformly lazy audiences.

So am I suggesting that, from now on, we do nothing but original musicals, not based on any source material? Of course not! If a show is well written and works on stage, it doesn't matter where it came from. But we need to care more about the quality of the shows being done - big shows, little shows, cheap shows, expensive shows - all kinds, all musical styles and all types of stories.

It is a sad bit of irony that, in the entertainment industry, creativity and imagination are often valued less than what I will charitably call "the easy road". We need, as an industry, to try harder, aim higher and do better. And making that level of work the norm will take the most imagination and be the biggest adaptation of them all!

(On a related note, check out my Media page to listen to a demo recording of the song " Different Kind of Man" which I wrote for a potential musical version of the indy film, Kinky Boots.)