Writing a Musical

Writing musicals is really hard. You have to have different scenes, characters and songs. I re-wrote High School Musical and made it a primary school version. Even that was hard! I changed the lyrics to " Start Of Something New", "What I've Been Looking For" and "Breaking Free". The scenes are the school disco (originally vacation resort New Years Eve party), the school (originally East High School), the auditorium and the soccer feild (originally a basketball court.

Are Lyrics Poetry?

Poetry and lyrics are pretty much the same thing, except poetry is spoken and lyrics are sung. Most lyrics rhyme, poetry can rhyme. Poetry tells a story, lyrics can too. They are different, but the same. Lots of songs can be said as poetry whereas others can't.

Song lyrics normally tell a story of something that has happened, different forms of poetry can be nothing like a song. Also some songs would be hard to turn into poetry, but I do think they are the same thing.

Why Are Musicals Such an Important Form of Entertainment?

Musicals are one of the most succesful forms of entertainment. This is simply because of how musicals aren't only movies, they are also shows that can tour around the world. The songs in the musicals are what everyone loves about them. They can sing along in their living rooms or just feel connected to what the message they are expressing is.

Musicals are unique and have a different way of getting attention. The story line can be told through songs, some musicals don't have one word that isn't sung, e.g Cats. Each musical is different. Whether it's cats crawling around a dark stage or a girl dancing with a beast, these are what makes everyone love them.

What Inspires The Writing of Musicals?

Each musical has a different inpiration. Some may be past experiences, imagination or even a book.
The inpiration for Cats the musical was from a book of poems about cats. They took the poems, made them into songs and created one of the best musicals in broadway history. Some musicals aren't broadway shows, some are movies.

Other musicals can be animated like the Lion King, this is obviously about the animals in africa. The songs and the animals caught the eyes of many little kids. I remember watching this musical over and over when I was younger. Beauty and the Beast was one of the fairytale stories that was turned into a musical. This is one of my all time favourites and the junior production for this last year was amazing.

What Are The Key Characteristics of Musicals?

The muscial numbers, costumes and characters.

Musical Numbers

The musical numbers in a musical tell the story as well as entertain the audiences. This is the probably the most important key to a musical. Have you ever heard about a musical without music?

Costumes

What people wear brings out their personality. E.g; Cats the musical, the costumes are made to look like cats. Hairspray; The costumes are made to look old fasioned like dresses and tuxs etc. This is another important part of a musical.

Characters

Each musical must have characters. These are the people you see performing, they wear the costumes and learn the musical numbers. This is another important part of musicals because you can't have one without characters.

How Do I Persue Personal Excellence?

Personal excellence is basically you trying your best and succeding. What I do is manage my time wisely so you don't rush things at the last minute, if you leave everything until a few days before the deadline you'll find that your rushing everything and not doing your best work. Spread your work out evenly based on the time you have to complete your project, that will make sure your doing a little bit of work each week so it's not full on. For the musical study, I went down the creative path and did something different to everyone else. I planned it in my book on the first week and had it completed by the third week. Also for my musical, I issued out the book of the musical I am re-writing so I can read it through and change the storyline a bit.

I plan everything before I do it so I have a reasonable idea of what I'm doing, for my musical study I researched and put all the information in my book and arranged it to what it should look like on my presentation. For my musical study I read the book, brainstormed all the musical numbers, the scences and the characters and typed up a blurb and character description. Hopefully my typing skills will allow me to have it published by friday.