Workshopping an Original Musical Theatre Book and Score
Honors Capstone Project
1
Advisor(s)
Dr. Joan Robbins
Confirmation
1
Document Type
Paper
Location
ONU McIntosh Center; Activities Room
Start Date
8-4-2025 2:30 PM
End Date
8-4-2025 2:45 AM
Abstract
Musical Theatre majors spend the majority of their time working on the performance of material, most of which has already been written and produced many times over. The focus of this Capstone is on the creation of Musical Theatre material. This includes two primary focuses: the book/script of the piece and the score/songs.
Classmate Andrew Holdsworth (BFA Musical Theatre, BA Music) and I will be developing an original script and score of a full length musical. The project will be a finished first draft at the end of this academic semester.
In line with professional practice, we will use the fellow theatre students in the department to begin to hear the material off the page. We will hold two table reads: the first will be only the actors and creative team. The second will have an invited audience, who will have an opportunity to give feedback to the creative team on the current state of the project. There will also be recordings made of the current songs to create a "concept album" of the piece.
Most pieces of theatre have many phases with large changes to better clarify and improve towards the final product. This project allows us to have a full draft and live feedback to have direction on where to focus on improvements.
Recommended Citation
Bell, Grant, "Workshopping an Original Musical Theatre Book and Score" (2025). ONU Student Research Colloquium. 5.
https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/student_research_colloquium/2025/Papers/5
Open Access
Available to all.
Workshopping an Original Musical Theatre Book and Score
ONU McIntosh Center; Activities Room
Musical Theatre majors spend the majority of their time working on the performance of material, most of which has already been written and produced many times over. The focus of this Capstone is on the creation of Musical Theatre material. This includes two primary focuses: the book/script of the piece and the score/songs.
Classmate Andrew Holdsworth (BFA Musical Theatre, BA Music) and I will be developing an original script and score of a full length musical. The project will be a finished first draft at the end of this academic semester.
In line with professional practice, we will use the fellow theatre students in the department to begin to hear the material off the page. We will hold two table reads: the first will be only the actors and creative team. The second will have an invited audience, who will have an opportunity to give feedback to the creative team on the current state of the project. There will also be recordings made of the current songs to create a "concept album" of the piece.
Most pieces of theatre have many phases with large changes to better clarify and improve towards the final product. This project allows us to have a full draft and live feedback to have direction on where to focus on improvements.