rec.arts.theatre.musicals

Tim Gowen wrote:
> Robert Bouton wrote:
>
>> It's more general: What's the best
>> way to create a musical? Does it involve taking tunes written for one
>> character in a French version and giving them to a different character
>> five years later for an English version? Or does it involve two guys
>> who went to Columbia, writing in the language they grew up speaking,
>> one painstakingly sweating every word of the libretto in Doylestown,
>> the other seemingly taking a few minutes to fashion the right melody?
>
> Well Les Miz has done very well and Take Flight is wonderful, both
> written in different ways, so I'd say that both works. I can see that
> the latter is the more wholesome and fun way of doing it. Having the
> music exist already must make life easier for the lyricist!

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter how a show is written as long
as the end result works. "Les Mis", for all that I can pick holes in it,
works. It moves me. It moves a lot of people. And there have certainly
been shows created via a more traditional writing process which haven't
worked at all.


--

Stephen

There's an Act of Parliament banning my autobiography.