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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/)