NOV
19

Give My Regards to Un-Broadway

By Debra Fendrich, Publisher, Pioneer Drama Service 

I’ll be the first to admit I love Broadway musicals.  Even though I’m the publisher of Pioneer Drama Service, where we publish 234 musicals that will never see the lights of Broadway, I have been fortunate to see more than a handful of musicals on Broadway and have also held season tickets for the “Best of Broadway” national touring series in Denver for more than 35 years.

But does that mean I think every high school should produce only Broadway musicals?  No.  Does that mean middle school students should be “young at part” to perform 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 Broadway or Disney 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.

I feel so discouraged when the online forums suggest that the ONLY musicals worth doing are Broadway shows.  Ironically, almost in the same breath, the directors share their stress about the cost, the difficulty of the shows, the challenging sets and costumes, the impossibly long wait just to find out if they can get the rights, and more.  I only wish they would be more open-minded to realize that there are over 200 “Un-Broadway” musicals at Pioneer Drama that can be just as successful — and a lot more fun for their cast and crew, for their audience, and for themselves as directors!

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 actors to merely mimic someone else’s portrayal of a character.  Yet, if they’ve seen their character in a 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 skills in imitating others.

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, the audience is coming with pre-conceived notions of what they’ll see.  Your crew will have to dedicate all their time and energy — and your budget — merely to duplicate what’s already been designed.  Imagine the freedom and creativity they’d have putting on a musical that is new to the audience, where they get to dream their own vision, design their own sets, 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 but 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.  It’s a shame for the kids, but also their parents, and especially the out-of-state grandparents who would love to watch a video of the production.  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.  And Pioneer Drama does not make your postings time-limited, so you can keep them up permanently if you like!

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 students or 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!

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.  We publish our fixed royalty prices in both our catalog and online so you easily can calculate 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?  Do your students really have the commitment to memorize that many lines?  Pioneer Drama offers over 200 different musicals with running times of one to two hours and a manageable number of songs.  Trust me, your audience won’t object to a shorter production, and neither will your family as you try to maintain a work-life balance (ha!).

Even though the condensed versions of the Broadway musicals are shorter, 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 might be abridged by cutting out scenes and songs, but they are not crafted for success with student actors.

No matter from what perspective you look at it, Pioneer’s musicals are the way to go!  Written specifically for groups like yours, they give actors a true chance to shine, are a fresh change for the audience, and are far more manageable for you.  On top of everything else, they’re easy on the budget too!