This intensive, team- taught workshop encourages composers, lyricists, and bookwriters to find their own voices and learn to merge their unique artistic visions with those of other collaborative artists to create exciting new songs in a theatrical context. Class participants work in rotating teams to write and present songs and scenes, exploring song form, dramatic structure, and the process of conceiving longer works. Theatre songwriting craft, issues of communication between artists of different disciplines, and storytelling through music and text are emphasized. Great musical theatre works of the 20th century are read and discussed to support the students’ examination of their own creative process. Writers and composers from around the world who wish to explore musical theatre collaboration are encouraged to apply and immerse themselves in an exciting workshop experience in New York City. Poets, playwrights, and writers from other genres, and composers based in any musical tradition (pop, classical, country, hip-hop, rap, rock, jazz, etc.) are welcome to apply. Composers should either be able to write their work down so that it can be performed by others or be prepared to perform their own work. All class participants will be expected to collaborate on assigned projects outside of class time.
