The Difference Between a Musical Comedy and a Musical Play

I found this link and thought it was relevant to my earlier SIG blog. Read the comment by RainbowJude (the second comment). It is really informative and interesting. Here is the link

http://musicals.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1224528

Judi Dench - "Send In the Clowns" from Hey, Mr. Producer!

Judi Dench singing Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music.

I Am What I Am- Douglas Hodge

Douglas Hodge as Albin in La Cage Aux Folles.

Sweeney Todd - London National Theatre Cast

I wanted to post some of my favourite musical theatre performances. This Julia Mckenzie playing Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd at the National Theatre in 1994. I think the performance is inspiring. The detail she gives her performance is breathtaking. You see every single emotional transition and I believe it is this kind of performance that should be expected in musical theatre. I will be posting other performances too so enjoy :)

Musical Theatre SIG Update

Hello everyone!!!! I've decided to do my first update on the Musical Theatre SIG that I started on the BAPP Facebook page. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a group that's been started where people are having discussions on topics that interest them. If you find something that interests you then get involved. Here is the link;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BA-Professional-Practice-Arts-Middlesex-University/145821545478191

The discussion so far has followed lots of different paths and people have come up with some really interesting thoughts which I will try and outline in this blog. I also want to give some of my own thoughts on the comments people have made. If any of the ideas interest you come and read the discussion on Facebook, hear people in their own words and then give us your thoughts.

I began the SIG by talking about people's perception of musical theatre. Nicole thought juke box musicals such as 'Mamma Mia' and TV Programmes such as 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria' meant that musicals were associated with having a good time and fun. Nicole also mentioned that she couldn't think of many musicals that had serious themes. I could name you lots but they probably aren't all in the mainstream public consciousness, so perhaps she is right and it is safe to say that musicals are synonymous with good times.

Natalie felt that the general public don't understand the training and discipline involved in musical theatre and lots of people feel what they do is not appreciated for how difficult it is. Pearl suggested that the talent show TV programmes also had a hand in this because they are designed to make you think that anyone can do musical theatre without any training. I think that the general public probably do think it's easy but then is that what is expected of us? Are we supposed to make it look effortless? I think what worries me more is that even within the industry musical theatre is looked down upon. I feel sometimes when I am speaking to 'straight' actors that I have to apologise for being in musical theatre, as if I am the black sheep or the poor relation. Are these my own issues or are they put upon me by the industry? If it is the industry that looks down on musical theatre then why is that the case? Lots of 'straight' actors take part in musicals and often comment on how demanding it is, so why is there the stigma and more importantly how can it be changed?

The group discussed the term 'Musical Theatre'. Rebecca and others felt that describing themselves as musical theatre performers often had negative connotations (perhaps preventing people from reaching their full career potential) and that it also didn't fully describe or explain what they did. Rebecca suggested that it would be good to come up with a new term if anyone has any ideas. We also discussed how things are sometimes called musicals and sometimes plays with music. Jo said she'd seen 'Over The Rainbow' which is billed as a play with music and thought that it deserved this title because of the dramatic content. Does this mean that the term musical would not be good enough for it? Or perhaps it just doesn't give the right impression of what it is? Emily suggested that there was no difference between a play with music and a musical and I think that essentially she is right. There is however obviously a difference in the public consciousness of what the two involve. 

My first response was that people should be made to embrace the term 'musical'. There are many musicals with serious and moving themes. One recent one that springs to mind is 'Love Story' which transferred from The Chichester Festival. It involved the relationship of two people and the premature death of one of them. It was wonderfully written, performed and made me cry like a baby. Unfortunately it closed yesterday after a short run in the west end because of poor sales. I wondered why this should be. A brilliant, new musical with wonderful performances but with a rather serious story line. Emily commented that the upbeat, juke box musicals are often the success stories of the recession. In difficult times people want escapism and that is what these things offer. The huge box office takings of these productions show they have earned the right to be there. I absolutely agree (my best friend has been in Mamma Mia for 6 years so I have seen it 4762 times [exaggeration for affect] and still love it) but I do think that it is a misconception that the sole purpose of musical theatre is to entertain. I think it also has the power to educate, change views and push boundaries. It can be art and I think should at times be treated as such. 'Love Story' was a show that had the potential to do this but it closed before most people saw it. The people who like to see 'typical' musicals don't want to see one about death so who is the ideal audience? Is there one? I think there is but, as Emily mentions on the Facebook page, they are too snobby to go. I am talking about the majority of play going audiences. I am sure they would have loved this production in much the same way as they have been loving 'Over the Rainbow' (which is sold out and has already had one extension). Would 'Love Story' have fared as well if it had also been marketed as a play with music? Perhaps then instead of trying to get people to embrace the term musical we should embrace the term play with music. Perhaps we should use it when we are discussing musicals that have a deeper content? Or is this just perpetuating the stigma of musical theatre? What do people think?

I thought I'd also highlight another question that came up and relates to our work on ethics. Rebecca asks,

"What sacrifices should we make in order to give our careers longevity what principals and beliefs (if any)should be ignored in order to improve our chances or is it realistic to stand up for potentially old fashioned out dated ideas and still maintain longevity and growth within our industry?"

I think this is a really good ethical question to ask ourselves as performers. If you have strong opinions on what musical theatre should be like and think certain musicals are degrading the art should you accept a job doing them? Is this unethical? I know that the majority of people I know have done things they think are rubbish in the past because it is work.

I hope you have found some of this interesting. I have only highlighted a few of the points and not very eloquently in some cases so please check out our SIG and leave us your thoughts. Here is the direct link to the Musical Theatre thread http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=145821545478191&topic=63

Ethics

When we started talking about ethics at the campus session on Monday the group used the following words to explain what they thought was meant by the term; rules, morality, right and wrong, code of conduct, good and bad, values, protection, virtues.

Rosemary asked us to write down some of our personal virtues, or at least values that we try and live up to in our lives. I wrote down loyalty, treat as I would be treated, kindness, compassion, honesty. We were also asked to write down our values with specific regard to our profession. I wrote down dedication, hard working, focus. We all seemed to notice that our professional values had a different feel to our personal ones. They seemed to be slightly harder, more driven and more assertive.

We moved on to discuss what happens when your personal values come into conflict with what is expected of you professionally (either what your employer asks of you or, if you are self employed as I am, what is required of you within the industry to stay competitive). Rosemary gave an interesting example of a designer who is asked to create an advert for a cigarette campaign (illegal now but it wasn't always so). Do you work on the campaign even though you know that cigarettes cause addiction and disease or do you put aside you personal values because you are a professional who is committed to their work?

I tried to apply this idea to my own profession and I found that I am prepared to compromise some of my personal values for the sake of my career. For example, when I went to work in Malaysia at the end of last year I was aware that it is illegal there to be gay. If caught you can face imprisonment and worse. This goes against my personal beliefs but I took the job. I thought it would be good for my career and to be honest I needed the money. So am I the type of person who would comprise everything they believe in for the right amount? I hope not but who knows? In the case of Malaysia I guess I decided that my personal stand would do very little to change their laws so what was the point, but then again if everyone took a stand who knows what we could accomplish?

Thinking about it more I realise that I regularly go against my personal values for the sake of my profession. For example, one of the words I wrote down at the beginning was honesty but in the past I have put things on my CV that were basically untrue because I knew they would help get me an audition or a job. I'm pretty sure most performers have done something like this at some point. Maybe not on paper but perhaps at a time when you're asked in an audition if you can speak German. You tell the panel you're fluent when in fact you had three lessons when you were eight. So is it alright to lie on your CV if the result is getting a job? Is it a type of Consequentialism where the end justifies the means or is lying always wrong as Deontology suggests? Is the most important thing that it doesn't hurt anyone? Would it still be alright to lie if in doing so you prevented someone else form getting the job who was more deserving? Perhaps Virtue Ethics comes into play here and it is best to assess each situation on its facts.

I currently have two overlapping professions, musical theatre performer and teacher. Below I have written codes of practice for each profession. It should be noted that these are just my own thoughts (influenced by our discussions at the campus session) and I will now go away and research what official ethical guidelines are in place for each profession. Some points on the list are quite similar and others are more profession specific, much like the skills sets we discussed in the earlier part of the module.

Musical Theatre Performer:

• A musical theatre performer should have consideration for who they're working with and an understanding of the ethos of who they're working for.
• A musical theatre performer should have a dedication and commitment to preparation and performance
• A musical theatre performer should have a awareness of copyright laws and adopt a conscientious use of choreography and music in classes and auditions.
• A musical theatre performer has a responsibility to perform to 100% of there ability when on stage.
• A musical theatre performer has a duty to fulfill contractual obligations.
• A Musical theatre performer has a responsibility for the safety of themselves and others in the rehearsal room and on stage.
• A musical theatre performer has a responsibility to avoid deliberate endangerment of their health (i.e. not ice sating when you have a show in the evening).
• A musical theatre performer has an obligation to correctly pay National Insurance and Income Tax as a self employed person.

Teacher:

• A teacher has duty to protect those in their care (mental and physical protection).
• A teacher should give their full attention to the room they are teaching
• A teacher has a responsibility to teach appropriate material for the students in front of them.
• A teacher has a responsibility to increase their students' ability and also their confidence.
• A teacher should ensure they never exploit their students.
• A teacher has a duty to be responsible and reliable.

One of the most important things I got from the campus session was understanding the difference between the skills of a profession and its ethics. For example, some skills needed as a performer might be talent and energy but the ethics behind it is the responsibility to give 100% all the time. As a teacher a skill you might need is first aid but the ethics behind it is the duty to keep your students safe.

I think it is clear from my two lists that I currently have more of an understanding of musical theatre than I do of teaching. As someone who wants to move into the teaching of musical theatre I think it is really important that I have full understanding of both. I will need to comprehend the finer details of educational ethics to be a good teacher but I will also need to be able to impart my knowledge of performing ethics to my students before they become professional members of the performing community.

Questions

Apparently I have turned into a procrastinator this term. I have no idea why but it seems to be the case. That isn't to say that I haven't been thinking about my line of questioning a lot because I have, and even in the last week my questions and the angle from which I am looking at things has changed a considerable number of times. I have just found that I have been putting off writing about them. Perhaps this is because I have this feeling that the minute I actually write them down I will have to justify why I want to ask them, why it is important to me and why it will be useful to anyone else, something that I'm not sure I have the answers to yet. Blogging is sometimes like thinking out loud and in this instance I've felt the need to be relatively quiet (although obviously not completely because that is an impossibility for me) until my ideas reached a level where I felt I could effectively communicate them. I think that time is now so I am going to talk you through  how and why my thinking has evolved in the last week.

I should start by clarifying that I am a musical theatre performer (a term some of us are trying to rid ourselves of I know, but for now it will do) and a 'sometimes' teacher who in the future wants to move into the vocational training of musical theatre students. I initially believed that I wanted to become a dance teacher but the more I have thought about it the more I realise that dance isn't where my passion lies. I love drama. I love the creation and performance of characters. The portrayal of emotion that runs through acting, singing and dancing. It is after all musical THEATRE so I believe that acting is the most important aspect of what I do. It was this understanding of my current love and my future goals that helped me establish some initial questions.

• Why are musical theatre actors taken less seriously than 'straight' actors?

• Whose perception is this?

• Are musical theatre actors less good than straight actors?

• What is expected of straight actors and can musical theatre actors meet the same needs?

• If not, then why not?

These questions are all things that are really important to me and they are still definitely a part of what I want to investigate but looking through the reader I kept coming back to Hanstein's idea of 'pseudo questions'.

"A genuine question truly seeks an answer, as a pseudo question expects no answer, cannot be answered, or has an answer that is already known to the person asking the question." (Hanstein, 1999).

I began to think that perhaps some of these questions I already know the answer to. For example, I am pretty sure I could tell you why musical theatre actors are considered less good than 'straight' actors. It doesn't mean I think it is right but I think it also means there is no need to do research around it.


I was still interested in the perception of musical theatre though. Reading Rebecca's blog 'Task 4a Developing questions relevant to my Professional Practice' I realised that other people were having the same experiences as me. Your CV and being a 'musical theatre performer' seriously impact not just the work you get but even the work you are considered for. I then posed the following question;

• What is people's (the public and industry professionals) perception of musical theatre performers, and how does this impact the training and work available to them?

Task 4c suggested that you should 'Develop your questions with your own professional community beyond the programme.' I thought it would be good to arrange a couple of meetings with people I know in the business to discuss my questions and ideas. One of the people was a performer friend of mine who did this course two years ago. The other was a performer friend of mine, who is carrying out her PhD and who is also head of drama on a two year MT course. I thought both would have useful insight and I turned out to be right.

At my first meeting I raised my questions and I was given some useful feedback. My friend suggested that the above question was perhaps too broad and that I needed to relate it more specifically to the area I wanted to move into. I would after all be using my research project to rationalise my award title and I would surely want my award title to highlight my knowledge of teaching vocational musical theatre. She also suggested that the first part of the question at least (what is people's perception of musical theatre) was perhaps still a pseudo question, and that I already knew the answer. She also suggested to me that I thought about what resources were available to me and what contacts I had in the industry that I could make use of. All of these observations really started to get my ideas flowing. We came up with a couple more questions;

• What would be needed from an educational level to improve musical theatre performer's acting ability and the image of it?

• Is the current level of training at musical theatre schools sufficient in creating actors of a high enough standard?

I didn't feel happy with these questions though because I thought they might be constricting. I then suggested the question;

• How do you best train someone for a career in musical theatre?

This question really appeals to me because it is totally related to where I want my career to go. I know there is lots of literature on the subject but I am also sure there is not a current consensus. I am certain that I do not know the answer but I think that an investigation into it would not only help me as a teacher but would also benefit my future students. I also think the question incorporates strands of all the other questions I previously asked. For example, how you train someone must surely be influenced by the way you perceive the industry. Are all musical theatre students being trained for the same thing? What are the expectations of where they will end up? Is there in fact a right/best way at all? This line of inquiry genuinely excites me and I would love to know what any of you think.

My second meeting was equally enlightening in a different way. Instead of talking about types of questions we talked specifically about the question above. As my friend is head of drama on a two year musical theatre course she obviously had a lot to say on the subject. I won't give you all the details of the conversation but something that occurred to me that was interesting relates to organisational change. The course she helps run is only in its second year and as such they are in a position to really assess what the industry currently requires from graduating musical theatre performers. I think they are also in a perfect position to help mould what is expected. This made me realise that some of the older more established schools were perhaps at risk of being out flanked because they are so steeped in history and 'the way things are done'. I would love to do case studies on the heads of lots of different musical theatre courses. I think the findings would be both interesting and important for the future of the industry. After all it is the graduating students who will shape the direction that theatre takes.

Sorry for the hideously long blog but I am glad that I have finally got some of my thoughts down. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Musical Theatre SIG

I've started a SIG on the BA Professional Practice (Arts) Middlesex University about Musical Theatre and I would love anyone who is interested to take a look and leave me their thoughts. If you haven't joined the Facebook group yet then DO IT because some other people have started really interesting topics as well.

This is what I posted on Facebook;

Sorry to be so obvious about my topic but it's what I do and love. I still don't know what my inquiry questions are and I'm hoping that this SIG might help. In my future career I want to carry on performing but I would also like to teach on a vocational musical theatre course. I therefore really want to look in to musical theatre, it's relevance and people's perception of it. I want to find a question that not only interests me and helps me improve my career prospects but also enables me to better prepare my future students for the career they are embarking on.

Just a quick thought to start people off. There is a new (and I have to be careful what to call it here) "play with music" coming to The National Theatre, where I work, called 'London Road'. It is about the Suffolk Strangler and as such is of course extremely sensitive material. It was originally billed by the National as a musical but it received complaints from the families of the victims and others and since that time they have shyed away from the term musical and instead used play with music. The concept and piece of theatre itself however has not changed. Just the marketing. So what do people think? If it's ok to do a play then why not a musical? 

This blog is really interesting and mentions a lot about musical theatre's relevance as well as London Road in particular.
http://www.ayoungertheatre.com/in-turn-safety-curtain/

If you want to view it on Facebook and have a conversation then just click here :)

Insider Inquiry at the Campus Session

Hi everyone. I am finally getting myself motivated to start the work I need to do for this module. I don't know about everyone else but I have found it so hard to start again this term. There seems to be so much more work to do and I think that has frightened me off rather than inspiring me. I went to the campus session yesterday though and that really helped me realise that the time has come to pull my finger out and get on with things so hopefully in the next few days I will be writing several posts.

I just wanted to start but writing a short account of one of the tasks we did in groups at the campus session yesterday. Rosemary asked one person from each group to write up our thoughts and I volunteered. The task was to identify opportunities and challenges that people face when they are carrying out an inquiry within the work place.

Opportunities:
You are in perfect position to understand problem areas that need to be fixed.
You would have hopefully a passion and interest for the inquiry.
You would be directly effected by the inquiry and therefore are in a position to reap the benefits.

Challenges:
You may be too involved and therefore overlook basic, obvious elements of the inquiry (unable to see the wood for the trees).
You may have preconceptions and may have a desired outcome which could lead you to manipulate the results to suite your needs or only focus your attention in the area that confirms your opinions. In the long run this benefits no one.
It may be difficult if you have too strong an emotional attachment to the inquiry or have to personal a relationship with people involved. This could lead to ethical problems with the information that is obtained.

Rosemary explains the whole campus session in more detail on her blog so if you (like me) have found it difficult to start you may find it helps. Looking forward to hearing everyone's opinions over the coming months.