Episode 209: Musicals Part 1
These notes include affiliate links.
Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing part 1 of a two-part series that digs into the storytelling found in musicals!
In this episode, we talk about a variety of musicals that have some personal meaning to us — including: tick, tick…BOOM! The Secret Garden, Urinetown, Six, Into the Woods
We also talk about storytelling lessons found in these shows. Things like:
Connect with and step back in with your five senses
Find songs that help you connect with your character’s wants, emotion, and fears
Listen to how songs change and layer on meaning with each verse
Show real emotional (not just physical) reaction to something that’s happened
Be familiar with and care about what’s come before, prior to making a meta commentary
Know what you’re story is developing towards, so you can nail your punchline
Plant narrative seeds early and have natural consequences grow from your characters actions
Remove your characters emotional crutches and force them to face their deepest fears
Discover authentic emotional reactions from your characters through empathy
Towards the end of our conversation, we talk about an interview with actress Anya Taylor Joy where she talks about a note she was given while working on the movie Split. The director asked her to let her “character cry her own tears.” The idea is rather than digging within your own history of emotions, connect deeply with the character’s situation through empathy and give him or her their own emotion in the moment.
We hope you enjoy this episode! We’ll be coming back next week with part 2 of this series.
Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!
Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore
Notes:
The Verbivore mentions a song from the musical tick, tick…Boom! by Jonathan Larson. Here are the videos she references:
YouTube Raúl Esparza - Come To Your Senses (tick, tick…BOOM!) MISCAST22 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rRHPXmGZ8A
YouTube tick, tick… BOOM! | “Come To Your Senses” Official Song Clip | Netflix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hlTdLsgSMQ
YouTube 'The Schuyler Sisters' from Hamilton get MisCast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYmavCsp8Hs
YouTube Katrina Lenk (THE BAND'S VISIT) performs "If I Were a Rich Man" from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4lKi3VbB_Y
The Verbivore also reference’s an interview talks about crying the character’s tears. That is located here:
"WITNESS ME!!!" Anya Taylor Joy and Nicholas Hoult on Mad Max: Fury Road, tiny cooking and The Menu - “Give your character her own tears” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwHOqEvr6m4
Musicals Mentioned:
Tick, Tick…Boom! Broadway Cast by Jonathan Larson
Rent Broadway Cast by Jonathan Larson
The Secret Garden Broadway Cast by Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman
Urinetown Broadway Cast by Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis
Six Broadway Cast by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss
Into the Woods Broadway Cast by Stephen Sondheim
Cinderella: Songs from the Classic Fairy Tale 1998 Studio Compilation
Music from:https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)