Musicals written by one person?

[JBroadway]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 11:49am

How many musicals can you think of where one person wrote the book, music and lyrics? Examples I can think of are:

The Music Man
The Last Five Years
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
RENT

Follow up question: do you think writing a musical on your own is a risky move? I know I'm not a big fan of RENT or the Mystery of Edwin Drood, and I wonder if they would have been better shows (in my opinion) if they had been written by 2 or 3 people.

[newintown]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 12:10pm

Even when the official credit shows only 1 writer, you can bet there were other hands helping.

The Music Man credits Franklin Lacey with story help; Lynn Thomson, Larson's dramaturg on Rent, famously sued the estate for co-writing credit and won a settlement, providing copious boxes of notes as proof. Orchestrations and arrangements, which many dismiss as merely decorative, are as intrinsically important to a score as melody and harmony, and few writers do their own.

Drood, as far as I know, may be the only true 1-man project I've seen, and who knows how much Wilford Leach and Graciela Daniele contributed to the creative process?

Although we love the idea of "genius" working alone and pure, theatre is always a collaborative form.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 12:12pm

Wasn't IN MY LIFE completely from the crazed mind of Joseph Brooks?

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 12:13pm

I was just going to post that Joseph Brooks not only wrote the music, lyrics and book, but he also directed In My Life.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 12:25pm

Let's not forget that the gay/lesbian plot elements of Rent are completely ripped from Sarah Schulman's novel People in Trouble (not hopping on the bandwagon after having read Stagestruck, that many specific elements from a show also present in the novel is far more than coincidence).

[D2]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 12:34pm

THE MOST HAPPY FELLA. Book, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser.

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 12:36pm

Why is that relevant to this discussion?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 12:59pm

Let's not forget that the gay/lesbian plot elements of Rent are completely ripped from Sarah Schulman's novel People in Trouble

Larson utilized several forms of inspiration for Rent (and the help of Lynn Thomson). Just as Holmes was inspired by Dickens and British music hall. And Loesser was inspired by They Knew What They Wanted. And Willson was possibly inspired by The Rainmaker. And Brown was inspired by his own relationship. And Brooks was probably inspired by hallucinogens.

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 1:01pm

Sandy Wilson:
The Boy Friend

Rick Besoyan:
Little Mary Sunshine
The Student Gypsy (also the director)
Babes in the Woods (also the director)

Bob Merrill:
The Prince of Grand Street
Hannah ... 1939

Updated On: 9/5/13 at 01:01 PM

[sondhead]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 1:14pm

Lionel Bart: Oliver!

[newintown]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 1:30pm

Going down that road, most of the works of Noël Coward and Ivor Novello.

[Mark_E]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 2:10pm

Blood Brothers - Willy Russell

[Jon]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 2:19pm

IN TROUSERS and the original MARCH OF THE FALSETTOS - William Finn. FALSETTOLAND (and the combo FALSETTOS)had James Lapine as co-author of the libretto.

[all that jazz]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 2:24pm

George M. Cohan shows.

[The Josh]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 4:34pm

Let's not forget The Rocky Horror Show, by Richard O'Brien!

[exedore]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 7:23pm

"Lynn Thomson, Larson's dramaturg on Rent, famously sued the estate for co-writing credit and won a settlement, providing copious boxes of notes as proof. Orchestrations and arrangements, which many dismiss as merely decorative, are as intrinsically important to a score as melody and harmony, and few writers do their own. "

Thomson also couldn't quote lyrics which she claimed to have written on the stand and turned down an offer made by Larson's estate which they needn't have even done - she was hired on a work-for-hire basis, and that means she holds no rights over it.

Her claims that Larson would have wanted her listed as a co-author are also entirely bogus - I've seen numerous drafts of the script, and while Billy Aronson is credited on all of them with a paragraph at the end, Thomson's name is nowhere to be found, even on the later revisions. From 1991, when Larson and Aronson struck their deal, onwards, Larson always intended to be the sole author credited on the show.

Of course, it also helps that most of the key songs and the general structure were written before she even came on board. Except for Take Me or Leave Me and What You Own, all the numbers you associate with the show were written either by the late 1992 readings or mid-1993, and in most cases (besides the title song and Glory) made it through with minimal changes past cutting a verse or a bridge here and there. You could also give a lot of credit to Jim Nicola and Michael Greif for the guidance they provided in shaping the material as well.

As for the People in Trouble aspect, I haven't read the book so can't say. I suppose I'll have to eventually, though.

[philly03]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 8:06pm

A Tale of Two Cities - Jill Santoriello
Gone With the Wind (200 - Margaret Martin
The Seduction of Sheila Valentine - Jack Murphy (yet to be fully produced)

[bk]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 10:08pm

"Going down that road, most of the works of Noël Coward and Ivor Novello."

Apparently none of the musical theater experts here are aware of Mr. Coward's or Mr. Novello's musicals. Pity.

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/5/13 at 10:18pm

Bk,

I wouldn't call myself an expert by any means, but I'm aware of them.

And having cited them, newintown has certainly proven to be aware of them!

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 9/6/13 at 8:04am

As for the People in Trouble aspect, I haven't read the book so can't say. I suppose I'll have to eventually, though.

Let me fill you in:

* Both are set in the East Village milieu of AIDS, homelessness, homosexuality, and artists.
* Both involve a love triangle between a straight artist couple and the woman's lesbian lover.
* The woman in the middle, in both pieces, is a performance artist who does a performance that defeats the greedy landlord evicting people with AIDS, which serves as a cathartic plot point for both works. In People in Trouble, the landlord dies; in Rent, he changes his ways.
* In both pieces there is an interracial male gay couple where one partner dies of AIDS. In both works this death is a cathartic plot point.
* Both contain a scene where the performance artist's lesbian lover meets the straight guy and they form some kind of strained relationship.
* In both, the lesbian couple become involved with people organizing to defend people with AIDS. In People in Trouble, an AIDS activist group steals credit cards to feed the poor. In Rent, a gay man programs an ATM machine for similar purposes.
* Furthermore, a difference between them only serves to highlight the use of People in Trouble in the creation of Rent. Rent is set in the 1990's, rather than the late 1980's. However, anachronistically, the use of watch alarms to remind people with AIDS to take their medications is a prominent paradigm. When Schulman was writing People in Trouble, in 1987, AZT was prescribed to be taken every four hours, necessitating the use of watch alarms, which would then go off in public places where there were many people with AIDS, such as the ACT UP meetings that she attended every Monday night. Her use of this image in People in Trouble is the first articulated observation of this cultural detail. In the 1990's, when Larson was writing and setting Rent, AZT was prescribed every twelve hours, so no one would have been using watch alarms. Leaving aside for a moment (and I'll tell you why in a minute) the fact that he had friends with HIV or AIDS and attended support group meetings going back to the late Eighties, Larson could not have observed this detail in the Nineties, because it was not there to be observed.

Now, you're wondering why I asked you to rule out personal inspiration in the event of that last one. There are two reasons. Firstly, it stretches the bounds of credulity that he took all that from the novel and didn't take the watch alarms as well. Secondly, it stretches the bounds of coincidence when you consider what happened after the novel's publication in 1987/88:

* In 1987, while writing the novel, Schulman met Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie, a team who wanted to make the novel into an opera. The three developed a treatment which circulated for the next three years to many prominent houses in the U.S. and Europe, including the Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Lincoln Center. The package included the treatment and various drafts of the manuscript, finally including the published book once it appeared in 1990. They described their project as a "La Boheme for the '90's." Among those approached with this project was Ira Weitzman, whom the official Rent story advises ultimately suggested to Billy Aronson that he collaborate with Jonathan Larson.

* In 1994, Michael Korie and Jonathan Larson were both awarded a Richard Rodgers Prize and both attended the awards dinner. At the dinner, Jonathan described the plot of his play to Michael, who responded, "That sounds like People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman." Jonathan expressed surprise that Michael was aware of the novel and affirmed that he had read the book and was using it in creating Rent.

* Finally, Billy Aronson has repeatedly stated that when he was working with Jonathan Larson on the collaboration that turned into Rent, none of the content that overlaps with People in Trouble was in the project. Aronson claims that the material came in once Jonathan went off to work on his own. Concomitantly, both Michael Greif and Lynn Thomson say that the overlapping materials were already in place when they came into the project (as director and dramaturge, respectively). This leaves the inclusion of the infringing material in the hands of Jonathan Larson.

As Schulman summed it up in the end, "There are only two basic plot lines in Rent: People in Trouble (the gay plot line) and La Boheme (the straight plot line)." Plus or minus Stagestruck's arguments about Rent and other theater pieces monopolizing and commodifying homosexuality, genderqueer, and AIDS, that's the meat of her argument.

Updated On: 9/6/13 at 08:04 AM

[Nickhutson]

Posted: 9/6/13 at 8:18am

Yes - RENT has a dramaturg and an extra lyricist.

Scrooge, Doctor Dolittle and Sherlock Holmes all have book, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse.