Description
Writing Your First Musical
with Tania Azevedo
This 3 session course is for anyone who feels passionate about musical storytelling and looking to create their first piece of music theatre. Whether you’re a playwright, composer, performer or any other form of performance maker, if you’ve ever wondered how musicals work and how to tell your story through music, then this course is for you.
When:
3 sessions
Weds, Thurs, Fri
Either
15th, 16th and 17th December
Time: 2 - 5pm
Where: Wildcard Studios, 18 Balderton Street, London, W1K 6TG
More info:
We will explore how to structure your musical, how to craft character arcs, scene beats and identify moments for songs. You’ll be set tasks in between sessions so that you’re applying what you learn to your own piece and you’ll get the chance to pitch sections of your work and receive feedback.
Ideally, you should come to the course with an idea of the piece of want to create as a starting point. If you already have a set collaboration with another artist (1 composer + 1 lyricist, for example) you’ll get the most out of the process if both (or all) writers attend. If you’re keen to meet and work with new collaborators during this course, we’ll be opening up the space for these partnerships to be made during the sessions.
SESSION 1: Structure and Narrative Shaping
In this session, we’ll learn the basic principles of dramatic structure and how to apply these to music theatre. We’ll explore how to craft moments of exposition, conflict, action and apply this knowledge to your piece.
SESSION 2: Scenes, Songs and Characters
In this session, we’ll work on individual scenes and/or songs from your piece and learn about character development and dramatic tension through music.
SESSION 3: Pitch Session and Feedback
In this session, you’ll get a chance to pitch your musical, present some of the material you’ve been working on and receive feedback on how to further your work.
About Tania:
TANIA AZEVEDO is a Portuguese theatre maker, director and dramaturg who graduated from Mountview, the King’s Head Theatre and the Royal Opera House’s Opera Directors Training Programme led by Katie Mitchell. She is the co-founder of award-winning Play Pen Productions.
She specialises in development of new work and since 2015 she’s lead the development of over 30 pieces of new writing, including plays and musicals. These include R&D workshops and fully staged productions with venues and companies which include National Theatre Scotland, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Dundee Rep, The Bush, American Music Theatre Project, Capital Theatres, Aria Entertainment, Selladoor and The Other Palace.
She has been part of UK’s leading New Musical Theatre festivals, including BEAM (panellist, dramaturg and director), From Page to Stage (reader, director and dramaturg) and MT Fest (director). As an educator, Tania regularly teaches and directs at drama schools including Mountview, Identity Acting School, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, EAST 15, and Northwestern University.
She received an Off-West-End Award nomination for BEST DIRECTOR for the London run and international tour of the new musical “Paper Hearts” and directed the UK premiere of the song-cycle “It’s Only Life” at the Union Theatre which received an Off West End Award nomination for BEST NEW MUSICAL.
Bursaries:
At Wildcard we believe everyone should have the chance to be creative. We want all our courses to be as open and inclusive as possible to anyone that wants to take part. We are aware that the cost of workshops and regular training is a key barrier in our industry for many people.
With this in mind, we are pleased to be able to offer 2 free places on each course.
If you are interested, please fill in this form where you can tell us a bit about yourself and let us know which course you are interested in:
Apply for a bursary!
Bursary places will be offered out no later than 2 weeks before the course begins.
For further enquiries about this workshop please email [email protected]
Payment Plans:
We are pleased to be able to offer a bespoke payment plan on all of our courses. If you are interested setting one up, please contact Emily with which course you are interested in and we can get your place secured.
