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Elements of a Musical

The Book (Libretto)

by John Kenrick

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:

Musical Theatre Librettos

Keep the story line clear and easy to follow at all times.
Create believeable characters that are easy to relate to, without resorting to stereotypes. (Good luck!)
Create situations that call characters into song.
Move in and out of songs smoothly.
Hand over much (sometimes all) of the plot and character development to the songs and choreography.
Make the audience care, start to finish. (If the action gets dull, nothing guarantees an audience will stay to learn the ending!)

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 –

Betty Comden and Adolph Green developed the idea for Bells Are Ringing from the picture of an overworked telepone switchboard operator on the backcover of a Manhattan phone book.
Michael Bennett was approached by two dancers looking tocreate a troupe of Broadway chorus dancers that could develop new musicals.Taped workshop sessions with various dancers sharing their memories led to thebirth of A Chorus Line.
Composer Marvin Hamlish's rocky love affair with lyricist CaroleBayer Sager was the primary inspiration for They're Playing Our Song. Of course, it helped having Neil Simon shapetheir stories into a touching but hilarious book.

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:

Fiddler On the Roof – A horrific pogrom ruins Tzeitel's wedding. How will Tevye's family carry on?
My Fair Lady – As Liza dances off with the scheming linguist Zoltan Karparthy, will her secret be exposed and Professor Higgins' work ruined?
Annie

Musical Libretto