MAY
18

Give My Regards to Un-Broadway

By Debra Fendrich, Executive Editor, Pioneer Drama Service 

I’m sure you were as thrilled as I was to hear that Broadway is planning on re-opening this September!  Eighteen months without professional theatre has been gloomy — for the actors and crew, for the venues, and for us, the audience members hungry for these wonderful musicals and plays.  Even though I’m the executive editor of Pioneer Drama Service, where we publish over 230 musicals that will never see the lights of Broadway, I have held season tickets for the “Best of Broadway” national touring series in Denver for 35 years now, and these eighteen months without any shows have left me feeling unfulfilled and forlorn.

And yet, as directors start to plan for a “return to normal” and contemplate their next musical, it frustrates me that only big name title shows are batted around on the online forums.  Should every high school produce only Broadway musicals?  No.  Should middle school students only “get to know” what it’s like to perform in a musical by doing some junior version of a Broadway show?  Absolutely not.  Should elementary students only be exposed to musicals via Disney or “kid” versions of the Broadway classics?  Again, the answer is a resounding no.

While there is a time and place for Broadway and Disney musicals, the “Un-Broadway” musicals that Pioneer offers also have a time and place, and you might be surprised just how much they can add to your season.

First and foremost when choosing a musical, think of what type of experience you want to give your students.  The mark of a good actor is creating a character, not copying one.  You don’t want your young actors to merely imitate someone else’s portrayal of a character.  But if they’ve seen their character in a movie, animation, or professional production, chances are they’re going to do just that.  With a character they have to create from scratch, young thespians learn what it really means to be an actor.  They use their imaginations and acting skills, not their imitation skills.

The same holds true for your set and costume designers.  When doing a Broadway or Disney musical, they know that the audience is coming with pre-conceived notions from watching other productions of the same show on stage or screen, so they use their skills to duplicate to the best of their ability (and your budget) what’s already been seen.  Imagine instead the freedom of putting on a musical that is new to the audience, where you get to dream your own vision, design your own sets, create your own costumes.  What an exciting and liberating challenge!

Pioneer musicals are specifically written and designed for success at an amateur level.  The sets and costumes are simple, yet invite as much embellishment as your budget and talent desires.  The dialogue is written for ease of memorization, and the songs — generally about ten in a full-length musical — are specifically written for the vocal ranges of young voices with more ensemble numbers than solos.

As you think of the type of experience you want to create for your students, also consider how many kids you want to have speaking roles.  Broadway shows are specifically written to be star vehicles and for the most part are very male heavy.  Many Disney shows also are.  From Hunchback of Notre Dame and Guys and Dolls to Les Miserables, you can’t even name three female roles in many of these shows.  Really, there are only so many times you can do Thoroughly Modern Millie and Annie.  And as one of our customers told me, “Annie is a fun show...  if you’re Annie.  But for the 29 other girls who auditioned to be Annie but ended up in the chorus, their enthusiasm for the show is suddenly low.”

You’ll be much more likely to find an ensemble cast with plenty of female roles in a Pioneer musical.  With a wide variety of cast sizes with roles of all sizes, imagine the joy of finding a musical to match your cast rather than having to limit your cast to match your musical.

You should also consider what type of experience you want to create for your audience.  When I went to a local high school’s production of Oklahoma, you should have heard the principal’s announcement.  Absolutely no pictures.  Absolutely no videos.  Believe me, these kids will never have the fun of posting their favorite musical number on YouTube.  It’s a shame for the kids, but also their parents, and especially the out-of-state grandparents.  With Pioneer’s musicals, livestreaming is always an option with a simple royalty arrangement.  In addition, pictures and parents’ videos for personal viewing are always welcome.  And we invite posting on YouTube or your school website for just one additional royalty fee per website.

Here’s the kicker:  you’re probably concerned that performing an unknown show will hurt ticket sales.  Not true!  Unless much of your audience is filled with community members not associated with your school, it actually will have little to no impact.  Face it, your audience is made up of family and friends of your cast. The single biggest determining factor of your audience size is the size of your cast, not the name of the show. So don’t worry about ticket sales; just get lots of people onstage.  And backstage.  And doing entertainment in the lobby at intermission.  If all of them have family and friends come to the show, you’ve got it made!

We’ve considered what type of experience you’re creating for your cast, crew, and audience, but don’t forget to consider what will be best for YOU!  If you’re doing a full Broadway musical, think about what you have to put up with:  applying for rights months in advance (with a risk of being denied), unknown royalty fees, pre-defined staging and choreography, tight restrictions on making any changes to the script, logo usage restraints, pre-defined rental periods, pricey streaming rights if any, erasing every pencil mark in every book...

Not one of these “necessary evils” is actually necessary if you do an “Un-Broadway’ musical from Pioneer.  There’s no “applying for rights” since exclusivity is not an issue, our royalty prices are fixed and clearly published so you know all your costs upfront, and you’re purchasing the material, so you can work on your own timeline and have your actors and crew mark up their scripts as much as necessary to help create the best production.  Want to make a slight change to the wording, change the gender of a character, or add in local references?  No problem!  Have a talented student that wants to design an original logo for our musical?  Fantastic!

The condensed versions of the Broadway and Disney musicals create other problems along the way.  Time and time again, we hear from directors that these highly edited scripts are choppy and put scene changes practically right on top of each other.  These shows were simply not written for amateur success with student actors, and shortening a show isn’t going to change that fact.  Just like reading a condensed version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in lieu of Mark Twain’s classic, highly edited adaptations might give students a taste of the real thing, but without the fullness of the character development and the complexity of all the subplots and themes, they really are a poor substitute for the original.

Pioneer’s musicals, written specifically for groups like yours, are easy on the budget and give young actors a true chance to shine.  We invite you to preview our musical scripts through our e-view program, which also provides the CD Sampler track at no extra cost with every musical e-view!  Have you taken advantage yet of this school year’s website offer for three free e-views using the promo code ThreeFree?  Hurry!  It expires at the end of June, so now’s the perfect time to take a look at possible scripts for next year!