Synopsis
For its practitioners, musical theatre is an art, a passion, and a lifelong love. But it's also a complex landscape involving not merely principles of craft about book, music and lyrics, but also principles of collaboration, script/demo presentation, project/production development, venue, business, and - everybody's area of uncertainty - politics. In "The Musical Theatre Writer's Survival Guide", award-winning musical dramatist and teacher David Spencer provides a guide-to-the-game that helps you negotiate all those aspects of the business and more. This professional handbook will walk you through: getting your name and your projects into the hands of producers, instead of the rejection pile; choosing the right producer, agent, or director, instead of surrounding yourself with people uninterested in your work and your career - or interested for the wrong reasons; bringing your vision to life through stage-savvy writing, instead of watching it sputter due to flaws in craft; and living a happy, healthy life in musicals, instead of dying a slow, showbiz death.
If you're taking your first steps, Spencer's counsel, anecdotes, and instructions will save you years of blindly stumbling about without results. Likewise, if you've been around the block a few times, "The Musical Theatre Writer's Survival Guide" can rescue you from the kinds of career-stalling traps, bad habits, and false assumptions that lead to dead ends.