A Musical is Born! - Part 1 - The Seed

I've been busy.

I have two books in the works, but what has been all consuming is the musical that I've been working on since 2019. This musical will be performed in February of 2023, so I think this is the perfect time to start documenting the journey!

Welcome to Part 1 of "A Musical is Born!"

In the spring of 2019, my two oldest girls finally had a chance to help backstage with a show. Our local chapter of Christian Youth Theater (called CYT Tri-Valley) was performing Godspell, a musical adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew. By the last night of the performances, my girls were in love with theater and eager to perform in the next season.

But their excitement dwindled when the next three shows were announced: Frozen, Jr., The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Honk! There wasn't anything wrong with these shows; admittedly, they weren't familiar at all with two of the shows. But my girls had dreams of being in something big, like Les Miserables.

This led to a discussion about the small number of musicals that were appropriate for a CHRISTIAN YOUTH theater. Most musicals are not written with children in mind; they are full of crass jokes and innuendo (to say the least.) Even Les Miserables, an epic story of redemption, is not fitting for youth, unless heavily edited. And let me add that some popular musicals performed by high schools and other youth companies are full of morals that are not godly. I wish that all Broadway shows could be like Godspell. And it's not simply about making some edits; theater companies sign contracts that limit the changes they can make to a show. Unless you get specific permission to make changes, you are bound by copyright law to perform the show as written.

So that leaves few musicals to choose from. There are plenty of "junior" version of shows out there, and "children's" musicals and even "Christian" musicals, of course, but sometimes the quality of these shows are not top notch. Nor are they challenging to actors and singers who listen and watch Broadway musicals.

This was the discussion that started turning the wheels in my mind.

"Could I write a musical? Could I write something that is fitting for youth theater, full of beautiful music, and based on Biblical values?"

I wasn't completely confident in my skills, but I was up for the challenge. After all, I've written stories, scripts, songs, and choral music. Put them all together, and a musical is born! Besides, what was there to lose?

First step, I needed to find a story to adapt, because I knew I didn't have the time or energy to write an original story. I thought of one book after another that might work on stage: Pollyanna, Homer Price, and Mr. Popper's Penguins. Then I ran into copyright laws. If a book is not in the public domain, then I would need to ask permission to use the book (or pay royalties.) This then led me to two books that were more than one hundred years old, E. Nesbit's Five Children and It and George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.

I decided to start with Five Children and It. This book tells the story of a family on vacation in England, and while they are there, the children dig up a creature called a Psammead, who has the ability to grant wishes. Then, of course, their wishes lead to trouble.

The story was perfect. It had a variety of characters, fit for all ages. It had moments involving a town full of people, and moments between only two or three characters. I started reading the book and mapping out the script, removing chapters that were impossible for youth theater to pull off (like the chapter on flying). Whenever I encountered a problem (like "How do we portray a baby on stage?"), one of my kids came up with a solution. Amazingly, the whole process flowed smoothly. The original story was written as a serial for a magazine, so chapters fell neatly into "days" and "scenes". I only had to dig a little for a subplot and an overarching story. The theme was apparent: be grateful for what you have. And most surprisingly, song ideas came easily, with the help of the author's text as lyrics. While I've been struggling to write "pop" songs lately, songs in the musical theater style came very naturally to me. By the end of the summer, I had a rough script and most of the song ideas.

Now for step two.

I had my family, plus my sister-in-law, do a read-aloud of the script. This didn't go so well. I had tried to preserve Nesbit's words as much as possible, but she being a British author from the early 1900's meant many words and phrases that were confusing to present day readers. If a person was reading them in a book, that would be one thing. But for an audience hearing the words, that was a problem. The story needed to be immediately understandable. So back to writing and rewriting.

Step three meant recording the songs so people could hear them. Out came the keyboard. I used Garageband to lay down the piano track, then recorded myself singing all the different parts. My husband heard my working on the songs, and immediately said about one of them, "It doesn't fit." No writer likes to hear those words! But he was right. The song was too melancholy for the fairy-tale. I scrapped that song and tried to come up with something more danceable and fun. After a few tries, I found a "country dance" sound that I really liked, which made the potentially scary scene much more light-hearted. This song is now one of my favorites.

And so it was, back and forth like this for months. Writing means rewriting, and rewriting, and rewriting. It means analyzing the tiny details, but also seeing the bigger picture. Some characters needed more development and lines. I had three songs in a row that were too similar, so I reworked the second song and gave it a totally different sound. I had a big gap without any music, so a new song was added. I tried adding another song near the end of the show, but that seemed to impede the flow of the scene, so out it went.

All throughout this process, my goal was still to write something that a medium-sized youth theater group can perform. It didn't need to be earth-shattering. It didn't need to make it to Broadway. I wrote with the children in mind, that there should be something for everyone, whatever their age, and whether or not they have the best voice or most experience. I put in a small sword fighting scene (who doesn't love a good sword fight?) and a possible tap number. In the end, I felt like I had accomplished my goal– a beautiful, God-honoring musical that was fun for all!