Musicals—1

OK, here we go. As promised last week, we’re going to launch ourselves into film musicals. And what better way to begin than to follow the yellow brick road.

My husband tells me that The Wizard of Oz [1939] was the first film he was taken to that was in a real movie theatre. He remembers being mesmerized and he remembers his older sister spending a lot of the film under her seat—it scared her that much. It’s a film that his parents saw in the theatre when they were young and were now taking their kids to see as it was being re-released. That’s the thing about musicals—they’re often timeless.

Like a lot of film musicals, especially those in the early days of the genre, The Wizard of Oz, comes from a book. L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900 and went on to write 14 subsequent Oz books. His franchise continued and a multitude of Oz books have been written for children—the latest in 2006. As The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is in public domain in the United States, anyone can piggyback onto its popularity and write Oz books [or plays or musicals] of their own. If you want to know more about the Oz books, take a look at a brief history of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oz_books.

I mention the Oz books because one of the ways to think about writing a musical, is to think about adapting a book into a musical. Some children’s books lend themselves nicely to this—witness Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that we talked about last week. So this is a case where you perhaps don’t even need an original idea to write your musical. Perhaps you can mine children’s books, and other novels/stories, that are in public domain and use them as the jumping off point for your musical.

The Wizard of Oz falls into the fantasy category of musicals. It’s about a land that we know doesn’t exist… but we kind of like to believe it does. It’s also a musical geared to children, but adults can love it too. Like a lot of musicals that were intended for kids, The Wizard of Oz has another level of meaning that appeals to adults—which is why every parent looks forward to introducing their child to the film.

Musicals often have the capacity to be timeless—so if you’re looking for timeless, one place to look is children’s books in the slightly fantasy genre. Or, you could write your own fantasy musical.

What would it take for you to do that?

Well, you’d have to create a new world, wouldn’t you? And you’d have to populate it with archetypal characters, characters that could exist in any era. And you’d have to create lyrics for those characters to sing that would let us see into their innermost hearts. And you’d have to have a story with universal appeal.

Like everything else when it comes to writing, it’s all about the story. Let’s continue our exploration of musicals next week and see if there’s a musical somewhere inside you waiting to burst into song!

Copyright © Diane Lake

28Jul19

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com