In the Books: Getting Started on Your Musical

We can all use a bit of expert advice from time to time. But, unless you’re as fortunate as a young Stephen Sondheim and live next door to the Hammersteins, you’re going to have to hit the books. Thanks to the internet, finding even out-of-print publications has become fairly easy. The following is our loosely-organized, roughly-alphabetical, highly-arbitrary and ever-expanding guide to prose by the Pros.

Getting Started: Choosing the Right Project

Where does an idea for a musical come from?
How do you know if it’s a good idea?

“It’s hard enough to write a musical that you love. If you don’t love it, it’s impossible.”
– Oscar Hammerstein

The Art Of The American Musical: Conversations With The Creators

Lynn Ahrens spends a lot of time in bookstores and at the movies (pg. 11).
Lynn Ahrens credits her husband with suggesting Bedazzled (pg. 5).
Jason Robert Brown explains how songs written for the cabaret acts of his friends became Songs for a New World (pg. 28).
Fred Ebb chooses something that interests him, even if no one but John Kander agrees (pg. 103).
Sheldon Harnick finds Fiddler on the Roof by reading a novel that he didn’t want to adapt (pg. 85).
Arthur Laurents is inspired to write Hallelujah, Baby! for Lena Horne “but, she isn’t interested” (pg. 133).
Harold Prince plays hardball with Warner Brothers for the rights to The Petrified Prince (?!) (pg. 184).
Tommy Tune credits his insomnia for keeping him up late enough to see the film Grand Hotel on television (pg. 250).
John Weidman turns to his major at Harvard for Pacific Overtures (pg. 261).

Notes on Broadway: Intimate Conversations With Broadway's Greatest Songwriters

Leonard Bernstein touches on the controversy behind adapting Shakespeare into West Side Story (pg. 14).
Jerry Bock talks about deciding to adapt three short stories for The Apple Tree (pg. 32).
Adolph Green complains that it’s “agony” to find a new project(pg. 67).
Gretchen Cryer shows how real life led her to write I’m Getting My Act Together (pg. 80).
Sammy Cahn advises keeping it simple (pg. 44).
William Finn credits desperation as the inspiration for Falsettos (pg. 114).
Micki Grant hopes for involving subject matter (pg. 127).
Marvin Hamlisch found A Chorus Line at the rehearsal hall (pg. 143).
Charles Strouse goes looking for one book and ends up finding another (pg. 278).
Sheldon Harnick admits to not knowing what a “surefire subject” is anymore (pg. 168).
Henry Krieger turns an ‘After-School Special’ into The Tap Dance Kid (pg. 212).
Allen Jay Lerner discovers Camelot in a book review (pg. 224).
Tim Rice hears about Eva Peron on the radio (pg. 233).
Mary Rodgers doesn’t care for “abstract stuff” (pg. 248).
Carol Bayer Sager seeks “something that people can identify with” (pg. 254).

I Got the Show Right Here : The Amazing True Story of How an Obscure Brooklyn Horn Player Became the Last Great Broadway Showman

Cy Feuer figure out how to turn an unpromising play into the musical hit Where’s Charley (pg. 80).
Cy Feuer reveals how a “weak but tempting” early adaptation of How to Succeed became a commercial success (pg. 220).
Cy Feuer says that a casting concept (Sid Caesar playing multiple roles) sold him on Little Me (pg. 223).

Making Musicals: An Informal Introduction to the World of Musical Theater

Tom Jones gives advice on finding “a property” (pg. 92).
Tom Jones suggests identifying “the problem” that needs to be solved before a promising property can become a musical (pg. 96).