JAN
26

Give My Regards to Un-Broadway

By Debra Fendrich, Publisher, Pioneer Drama Service 

I’ll be the first to admit that I love Broadway musicals.  Even though I’m the publisher of Pioneer Drama Service, where we publish over 235 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.  I even managed to fit in three Broadway shows on a three-day trip to NYC a few months ago.  (Seeing Hugh Jackman in The Music Man was an incredible birthday treat from my hubby!)

But does that mean every high school should produce only Broadway musicals?  No.  Does that mean middle school students should be “young at part” to perform in some chopped up version of a Broadway show that’s still written for adult voices?  Absolutely not.  Does that mean elementary students should only be exposed to musicals via “kid” or “junior” versions of the Broadway classics?  Again, the answer is a resounding no.

While there is a time and place for Broadway musicals, the “Un-Broadway” musicals that Pioneer offers also have a time and place, and you might be surprised just how much they can contribute to a successful theatre season at your school or youth theatre.

Pioneer musicals are specifically written and designed for success at an amateur level.  Besides being a fraction of the cost, the sets and costumes are generally straightforward, yet invite as much embellishment as your budget, time, 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.

Think about your cast and crew

Your students might be eager to do a show with a recognizable title from Broadway or Disney.  But think about what type of acting 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 mimic someone else’s portrayal of a character.  Yet, if they’ve seen their character in a Disney movie or in a professional production of a show, 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 stretch their imaginations and acting skills, not their imitation skills.

The same holds true for your set and costume designers.  If you’re producing a Broadway musical or a stage version of a Disney show, they know that the audience is coming with pre-conceived notions of what they’ll see.  Your crew will dedicate all their time and energy (and your budget) merely to duplicate what’s already been designed.  Imagine the freedom and creativity in putting on a musical that is new to the audience, where they get to dream their own vision, design their own sets, and create their own costumes.  What an exciting and liberating challenge!

As you think of the type of experience you want to create for your students, also consider how many kids you want to have decent-sized speaking roles.  Broadway shows are specifically written to be star vehicles and tend to be male heavy.  From South Pacific and Guys and Dolls to Les Miserables, you can’t even name three female roles in many Broadway 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 and ended up in the chorus, it’s a hard-knock life and their enthusiasm for the show is suddenly low.”

At Pioneer, you’ll be much more likely to find a musical with an ensemble cast and plenty of female roles.  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 find a cast to match your musical.

Think about your audience

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 The Addams Family, you can imagine 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, pictures and videos for personal use are always welcome, and it’s simple and affordable to arrange the rights to post the entire show on YouTube or your school website.

You might be concerned that performing an unknown show will hurt ticket sales, but you’d be surprised.  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 before the show or at intermission.  If all of them have family and friends come to the show, you’ve got it made!

And can I just ask, are there really that many people in your community who want to go watch Sound of Music or Annie for the umpteenth time?

Think about yourself

We’ve considered what type of experience you’re creating for your cast, crew, and audience, but don’t forget to factor in 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 the risk of being denied), unknown costs, pre-defined staging and choreography, tight restrictions on making any changes to the script, logo usage restraints, pre-defined rental and rehearsal periods, no marking in the scripts, unresponsive licensing companies...  The list of obstacles seems endless...  and hardly worth it.

Not one of these “necessary evils” is actually necessary if you do an “Un-Broadway” musical from Pioneer.  We have automatic licensing for all our shows, so there’s no applying for rights.  Our royalty prices are fixed and published so you know all your costs upfront.  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 art student who wants to design an original logo for our musical?  Fantastic!  Just give us a call or chat online — we have staff available in the office 55 hours a week to take your order or get you immediate answers to almost all your questions!

Another feature of Broadway musicals is their length — two and a half hours, which translates to an incredible amount of rehearsal time, followed by a lot of wiggling by younger siblings in the audience at the performance.  Do you really have the rehearsal time to choreograph and learn 13-15 musical numbers?  Pioneer Drama offers 235 different musicals with running times of one to two hours and a manageable number of songs.

Yes, the condensed versions of the Broadway musicals are shorter, but they create other problems along the way.  Time and time again, we hear from directors that these highly edited scripts are choppy, eliminate almost all the character development, and often put scene changes practically on top of each other.  These musicals were simply not written for success with student actors, and cutting out scenes and songs isn’t going to change that fact.

No matter from what perspective you look at it, Pioneer’s musicals are the way to go!  Written specifically for groups like yours, they are easy on the budget, far more manageable for you, and give young actors a true chance to shine.

Give my regards to Un-Broadway!