Guidelines for Proposing New Work in the Advanced Writers Lab
Project Proposal
When you are ready to propose a piece for development, you should be prepared to answer the following questions:
What kind of work are we looking for?
General:
Lyrics:
Note about Collaboration
NOMTI encourages collaboration. It is extremely rare for a single person to bring together enough skill in all areas – book, music and lyrics – to produce a successful musical. There are many ways to divide up the work, but it is always helpful to have someone with whom you can bounce around ideas, solve problems and share early drafts.
All work that is presented in the Advanced Writers Lab is presented on the understanding that all collaborators are open to feedback and change. In musical theater the book (story line), music and lyrics are so deeply interwoven and interdependent that feedback is rarely very useful unless all elements are part of the discussion. If your collaborators are not willing to consider revising their own contributions, AWL is not the right setting for you to develop your work.
Collaborators are encouraged to become regular members of the Lab, but we understand that this is not always possible. Long-distance collaborators may sit in on sessions when their own work is being presented (we have even had collaborators attend their own sessions via Skype). When Collaborators are present in AWL, they are expected to meet the same standards for receiving feedback as a regular AWL member.
When you are ready to propose a piece for development, you should be prepared to answer the following questions:
- If the work is adapted from an existing work, what is the source material? You must have adaptation rights if it is based on material not in the public domain.
- How far along is this work? Does it have a performance or workshop history? If you are planning to revise an old work, why do you want to pick this up again and how much of it is really open to revision? What do you feel the need to change?
- Develop a one-sentence statement of the story’s spine as you currently understand it.
- Develop a one-page synopsis of the story, including the beginning, middle and end, with no “teasers.” You can indicate where steps in the story are as yet unclear.
- What is it about this idea that will keep you going when you realize you’ve been working on the piece for six years and it’s not done yet? The thing that has to be part of it for you to care enough to finish it, that you must not let anybody talk you out of?
- What will be the tone or style?
- Who will be the audience for this piece?
- Who will you be collaborating with? In most cases, NOMTI encourages artists to specialize in book, music or lyrics, or some combination thereof, and to collaborate with artists of complementary strengths.
- Are your collaborators willing to change their work in response to NOMTI feedback? It is strongly suggested that collaborators be involved in the NOMTI process.
What kind of work are we looking for?
General:
- Do the authors have the rights to adapt the piece?
- Is the proposed project viable? Would a theater company ever do a piece like this?
- Do the authors have a clear idea of their intended audience?
- Is the proposed project one we want to spend hours listening to and discussing over the coming year or years? Is it substantially different from other projects already being developed in the group?
- How far along is the proposed project? Is the entire work open to revision? We prefer projects in relatively early stages of development because in projects nearing completion, the artistic team tends to be less willing to consider revisions that affect the overall structure of the piece – which might be where the critical problems are. Time in the AWL is at a premium and cannot be spent trying to respond to a work or a writer not really open to change, nor in perfecting individual moments of musicals whose overall conception may be seriously flawed.
- Is the proposed project likely to develop as an effective piece of theater?
- Is there a clear story line (spine)?
- Does it have distinct main characters with clear objectives and power to achieve them?
- Are the stakes high enough for the audience to care about the outcome?
- Is the story developed so that every scene has a turn?
- Is each scene truly about the characters on stage and not some third party?
- Is the style of the music appropriate to the subject matter?
- Do we understand characters through their music as well as through their words? Is the music harmonically coherent?
- Is there variety in tempo, mood and ensemble from song to song?
- Is the composer able to use standard song structures to forward the story? Is the word setting natural and intelligible?
- Do the vocal lines show a knowledge of singing technique and vocal ranges?
Lyrics:
- Does the choice of words reveal character and motivation?
- Do the songs forward the story?
- Does the lyric contain imagery appropriate to the character and environment?
- Does the lyricist have control over the art of rhyming?
Note about Collaboration
NOMTI encourages collaboration. It is extremely rare for a single person to bring together enough skill in all areas – book, music and lyrics – to produce a successful musical. There are many ways to divide up the work, but it is always helpful to have someone with whom you can bounce around ideas, solve problems and share early drafts.
All work that is presented in the Advanced Writers Lab is presented on the understanding that all collaborators are open to feedback and change. In musical theater the book (story line), music and lyrics are so deeply interwoven and interdependent that feedback is rarely very useful unless all elements are part of the discussion. If your collaborators are not willing to consider revising their own contributions, AWL is not the right setting for you to develop your work.
Collaborators are encouraged to become regular members of the Lab, but we understand that this is not always possible. Long-distance collaborators may sit in on sessions when their own work is being presented (we have even had collaborators attend their own sessions via Skype). When Collaborators are present in AWL, they are expected to meet the same standards for receiving feedback as a regular AWL member.