TEACHING THEATRE

BY MAUREEN BRADY JOHNSON

Last year, by the end of the first quarter, my theatre classes had completed theirfirst major project—an evening of short plays. They were feeling pretty goodabout themselves and I was proud of them. But I was also concerned they werein danger of early school year complacency.

I’m sure you know what I am talking about. Your theatre students haveworked really hard on a project or performance. Energy is high and they areriding a wave of audience commentary that is constructive, supportive, and posi-tively glowing. But then, instead of building on the positive groundswell, theydecide to sit on the beach and bask in the sunshine of all that praise. That’s whyI decided to begin second quarter with a brand new project and challenge themto look at the process of making theatre with fresh eyes.

The idea for this project came to me, like many good ideas, while I was driv-ing in my car. I was flipping around to find a song on a CD mix, concentratingon snippets of songs as I searched. I listened to Carol King start “I Feel the EarthMove,” Simon and Garfunkel sing “The Boxer,” and the Beatles begin “Help.” Ichuckled to myself as I tried to imagine one musical with all three of thosesongs in it. What would the storyline be? Then I had a thought: could I embedthese songs in dialogue and come out with a mini-musical? Would such an efforthelp me understand how difficult it is to actually write a musical from scratch?

It was challenging to think it through and I started to formulate a lesson aboutit for my theatre students. What if I gave my students three random songs on aCD, and asked them to find the thread of a storyline, write some short scenes to

Telling a story inthree songs

A musical theatre exercise

TEACHING THEATRE

link it all together, block it, and per-form it for the class, lip-synching thesongs? It was a tall order for sure, butdefinitely a project designed to shakethem up and get them thinking in newways about musical theatre.

To get started, I asked my own col-lege-age kids for some help. We chosesongs from a wide variety of eras andgenres. We burned only three songs oneach CD.

We tried to find songs that werevery different and put them togetherknowing that it would be very chal-lenging to find a strong storyline tolink them together.

For example, one disk had “UglyGirl” by Fleming and John, “Pump It”by the Black Eyed Peas and “Incom-plete” by the Backstreet Boys. Anotherhad “People” by Barbra Steisand, “In-sects” by Oingo Boingo, and “SheLoves You” by the Beatles. Another CDincluded “Don’t Funk with My Heart”by the Black Eyed Peas, “Yellow” byColdplay and “MmmmBop” by Hansen.

[It should be noted here that all ofthe recordings discussed in this articleare protected by copyright, and anypublic performance of them must belicensed. Copyright law provides for anexemption, under the doctrine of fairuse, for nonprofit educational use ofsome kinds of copyrighted material.Your schools may have a policy onintellectual property that covers thequestion of classroom use of copyright-ed material.]

After selecting the songs the stu-dents would use as the cornerstones oftheir musicals, I organized a handoutwith requirements and an explanationof the project. It read as follows:

Three songs on a CDplaymaking experienceYour mission, should you decide to ac-cept it (of course you will—your gradedepends on it) is to listen to the threesongs on this CD and find a storythread or theme that connects them.The songs will be embedded in a scriptthat you and your group will write.One song will be at the beginning, onewill be at the middle, and the other willbe at the end. The story should have a

character who wants something and isprevented from getting it (which leadsto conflict). This conflict is resolved atthe end. This resolution must beunique, creative, and contain astrange twist of fate.

The script, along with songs andblocking, lip synching, and choreogra-phy, must run a minimum of fifteen totwenty minutes. You only have to lipsynch and choreograph the first verseand the refrain to each song. If you wish,you may choreograph the entire song.

You must find a copy of the words toeach song and include it in the group’spacket to be handed in and graded.The packet should also include a com-plete and good copy of the libretto withbasic blocking, a list of costumes andprops used, and a drawing of the set.(Set pieces and changes must be keptsimple.)

The script should be organized likethis: dialogue/song/dialogue/song/dia-logue/song/dialogue.

Every person in the group must be inthe cast. Due dates will be announcedand must be met in order to maintainyour grade. Your final performancewill be for the class.

Getting startedThis was the preliminary sheet that Igave to my Theatre One (ninth grade),Theatre Two (tenth grade), and Ad-vanced Theatre (eleventh and twelfthgrade) classes. In my mind, I won-dered how each grade level would ap-proach the process. I was pleasantlysurprised by the outcome.

I presented the project to each classin the same way. The handout waspassed around. I reviewed it point-by-point, answering any questions thatthey had and altering some of it as wediscussed the fine points. They asked ifthey could choreograph a dance num-ber for the song. I said yes. Theyasked if they all had to dance. I saidno. They asked if they could add extrasongs. I said no. They asked if every-one had to be in it. I said yes.

We also set what we thought at thetime were reasonable deadlines, hop-ing to begin final performances inthree weeks. With illnesses and interrup-

tions in the school schedule, it actuallytook a month to complete the project.

The next thing I did was to breakthem up into groups of six to eight.Generally, I organize students in ad-vance and try to put people who workwell together. Sometimes, though, Ijust pull names out of a hat, figuringthat theatre is a collaborative art andthey must learn to work with every-one. For this project, I pulled theirnames out of a hat. I wanted thegroups to be composed of a really ran-dom sampling. I also wanted to tellthem that it was truly a chance group-ing. That way, when they had troublegetting along they knew that they hadto make it work and they had no oneto blame but themselves if it didn’t.

I had borrowed enough CD playersfor each group to have their own dur-ing the entire three- to four-week peri-od. The only exception to this rule wasmy Theatre Two class of seven stu-dents. This class would only get threesongs and work together as one group.

Each group took their CD and lis-tened to the three songs. They groanedand laughed then brainstormed forpossible storylines. I told them thatthey should write down every idea, nomatter how foolish it might seem. Lateron in the development process, manygroups would be glad to have all ofthe brainstorming ideas as they wereincorporated into the final script. Forexample, one group decided that theywanted to do a story about a rockgroup, The Insects, that finally makesit big. When they became disenchant-ed with their storyline about halfwayinto the project, they went back totheir original brainstorming ideas andfound one that carried them through.

To give you an idea of how it allwent, I’m going to review the work ofone group from each class.

Advanced TheatreThe members of one of the groups inAdvanced Theatre arrived upon theiridea almost immediately. Their threesongs were “She Loves You,” “Insects,”and “People.” They spent almost halfof the project time pursuing an ideathat eventually went sour. They would

TEACHING THEATRE

likes Belle, Belle’s head is in the sky,all the other girls like Gaston, and theBeast is under a curse and needs tofind true love.

2. In West Side Story, the charactersdevelop before anyone says a word.The Jets snap and rule the playground.The conflict with the Sharks is intro-duced. The leader of each group is es-tablished, as they are the center of thechoreography.

3. In Aladdin, Prince Ali’s arrivalmakes the day different from any otherday. He has come to meet Jasmine andthey go out carpet-riding, provoking achange in Jasmine’s life.

We could make the day our musicaltakes place special by having a climac-tic event take place that changes themain character’s life.

After taking this break to observe aseries of musical numbers and reflecton them, the advanced theatre group Imentioned above returned to theiroriginal brainstorming notes andchanged their idea completely. Iwarned them that taking such a radi-cal chance and starting over fromscratch would require them to worktwice as hard to catch up to everyoneelse. West Side Story had turned themon and they concocted a tale abouttwo groups at a school, the Insectsand the Mathletes. They blocked theiropening number borrowing shame-lessly from the movie version but in-stead of fighting, they had a war withcalculators. Of course, two membersfrom the rival “gangs” fell in love to“She Loves You” and “People” be-came the song that brought them alltogether at the end. They improvisedblocking and choreography, workingin record time to complete the scriptand run the show.

With a lot of intense rehearsal time,a sense of humor and some quick ad-aptation, this group really pulled itoff. Taking time out to watch someexamples of great musical theatre re-ally set them on fire and they turnedin a polished piece that made every-one in the group appreciate the effortthat goes into the creation of a newpiece of theatre.

drag themselves into class and workhalfheartedly on it. At about the sametime, I decided to call a halt to theproject and take some time out towatch some excerpts from about eightmusicals. I chose the opening numbersfrom West Side Story, Fiddler on theRoof, and even The Nightmare BeforeChristmas and the Disney cartoons,Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Wetalked about the techniques used forintroducing characters and conflict, howto use dialogue to show and not tell,and what specific elements they coulduse in their own productions. After twodays of watching a wide variety of mu-sical numbers, I asked them to answerthe following questions:

Name three musicals you saw in classand give me a technique from that mu-sical used to introduce a song and ex-plain how it is used to draw the audi-ence into the story/song. Be specific.How would you apply these techniques toyour group project? Be specific.

Some of the students answered likethis:

1. In The Nightmare Before Christ-mas, there was a narrator to introducetopic, which makes the audience askquestions. This brings the audience intothe story.

2. In Beauty and the Beast, Bellesings a song in the beginning that revealsmany different aspects of her character,foreshadowing the story. It shows con-flicts in the plot and in the character’s lifebefore any action really occurs.

3. In West Side Story, there are nospeaking parts in the beginning. How-ever, the audience is drawn in by thechoreography and notices the conflictsbetween the groups.

Our musical could use some type ofintroduction, even with a narrator. Weneed to establish why this day is differ-ent from any other day in the storyline.I also think choreography will be keyin our project because our songs don’tcompletely tie things together the waywe like.

Another group responded this way:1. In Beauty and the Beast, the initial

song sets up many conflicts. Gaston

Theatre TwoAs I mentioned before, Theatre Twowas the smallest class I had. Theywere seven extremely talented andcommitted members but definitely aclass of strong individual personali-ties. They listened to their songs,“Don’t Funk with My Heart,” “Yel-low,” and “MmmBop” and decidedthat they would go with a hospitalsetting and a doctor whose secret de-sire was to be a plumber. One of hisassistants, a nurse named Brunhilda,realizes his unhappiness (and also hisincompetence as a doctor), falls inlove with him, and together theyleave health care for plumbing.

This group came up with a verystrong preliminary outline. Three dis-tinct scenes had each song firmly en-sconced at the beginning, middle andend. But developing the dialogue thatconnected them was another issue.Almost immediately, they began tobutt heads as they tried to work to-gether. They began to argue abouteverything. They had reached an im-passe.

I made a suggestion that they splitinto groups of two or three to workon each scene separately. Everyoneknew the storyline so they wouldknow what to include in the dialogue.Then they could all come back to-gether and work on the transitions sothe flow from scene to song would besmooth. They agreed to give it a try.They worked for about a week ontheir dialogue and then came togetherfor a read-through. They argued againbut now they were in rewrites andthere was less of a struggle. After theyagreed on a final script they went intorehearsal, made more adaptations, im-provised, and rewrote some more.The initial chaos of their strong per-sonalities was turned into a positivething when they split up and thencame back together with a clever, cre-ative libretto. The song placementwas hysterical. “Don’t Funk with myHeart” was about a heart patient whodidn’t want the inept doctor to workon her, “Yellow” was about a patientin liver failure, and “MmmBop” reunit-ed the entire cast as the dead patients

TEACHING THEATRE

rose to do a choreographed ending. Itwas one of the best-constructed piecesperformed.

Here is what two of them, Isaac andAlex, said in their reflections:

“To take three completely and pur-posefully unrelated songs and some-how use them to form a coherent andenjoyable musical is a difficult task…The overall experience was a goodone. The musical as a whole truly test-ed our abilities to work with one an-other.”

“I did learn a lot… The most diffi-cult part was actually getting our storyline together to make the script. It re-quired a lot of attention, focus, andthought in order to connect ideasthroughout the plot.”

I was grateful for these student re-flections and in the future, their sug-gestions will change the process of theunit. For example, I would emphasizeusing the lyrics of the song to drive thestoryline, let them add a song of theirown, and possibly have one of the stu-dents become the director of the pro-duction once the script is completed.

Theatre OneThis particular group of ninth graderstackled the project with energy andexcitement. What they may havelacked in experience they made up forwith eagerness. They were fortunateenough to have one member of theirgroup who was a musical theatre junk-ie. He had seen a wide variety ofshows and had learned a lot fromthem. This group’s dynamic consistedof trying to keep a lid on “Mr. Cecil B.DeMille” from running roughshod overtheir ideas while understanding thatsome of his ideas were usable andeven spectacular. It was an interestingbalancing act to observe.

The group’s songs were “Money” bythe Flying Lizards, “I Believe I Can Fly”by R. Kelley, and “Twist and Shout” bythe Beatles. They came up with theirstoryline rather quickly and startedwork on the script as an entire group.They had a lot of disagreements butworked them out within the groupthrough compromise and by dividing

tions but gain knowledge of the historyof musical theatre. The timeline I usedalso needs to be extended from onemonth to two months and I reallythink I could give them a choice of us-ing the three songs I pick and one oftheir own choosing. At the same time, Ireally liked the idea of challenging thestudents to work within certain limita-tions. It forced them to come up withcreative solutions. Some students didn’tenjoy the restrictions but they allworked hard to find solutions to clarifystorylines, make bold decisions, andincorporate the songs smoothly. Ilearned a lot as I moved around askingquestions and making suggestions. Thedynamic of working as a team of cre-ators was an incredible lesson andmany students commented on the factthat, after the exercise, they looked atmusical theatre with fresh and moreappreciative eyes.

Maureen Brady Johnson is the authorof three books and many articles. Emailher at MaureenBJohnson@aol.com.

up the work. The story was about agroup of waitresses who sang as theyworked and dreamed of a time whenthey could leave the food service busi-ness and become a singing group. Abig opening dance number that theyrehearsed endlessly captured the audi-ence’s attention immediately. Theopening song was “Money” and it wasupbeat and had the waitresses dancingon tables. The study of the musicalnumbers on DVD really convincedthem that the opening had to grab theaudience and pull them into the story.Two wealthy patrons eventually showup and offer the girls life on a silvertray. They all sing “I Believe I CanFly,” but after the song, they find outthe promise of fame and fortune is alla lie. They decide that they shouldleave the big talker and strike out ontheir own, becoming the SpectacularSinging Waitresses complete with glitzytrays and aprons. The end song, “Twistand Shout,” is the opening of a bigconcert, merged with an original hip-hop lament.

This group did a great job with theproject because they threw themselvesinto it with conviction and determina-tion. They had the most fun out of anygroup and that light-hearted attitudeshowed up in their performance. Theyspent a lot of time on the dance num-bers. Their storyline suffered a bit, butthe excitement and precision of thedances moved it along.

In the words of Rubina, a student inthe Theatre Two class, “I am nowmore aware of what it takes to write/produce/stage a musical and will con-sider that when viewing other shows.This insight should prove valuablethroughout my life, and at the end ofthe day it was a learning experiencethat I will remember.”

Some of my other students maderecommendations that will help me toperfect the approach, timeline, and re-quirements in the future. I am consid-ering adding more musical watchingtime, selecting scenes that show howcertain aspects of the story are handledby the professionals. By observingmore musicals, the students will notonly gain ideas to use in their produc-

Originally published in the quarterly journal Teaching Theatre. More info: Schooltheatre.org