Rebecca Applin Warner – författare

Dramaturgy is at the heart of any musical theatre score, proving that song and music combined can collectively act as drama. The Musical Theatre Composer as Dramatist: A Handbook for Collaboration offers techniques for approaching a musical with the drama at the centre of the music. Written by a working composer of British musical theatre, this original and highly practical book is intended for composers, students of musical theatre and performing arts and their collaborators. Through detailed case studies, conceptual frameworks and frank analysis, this book encourages the collaboration between the languages of music and drama. It offers a shared language for talking about music in the creation of musical theatre, as well as practical exercises for both composers and their collaborators and ways of analysing existing musical theatre scores for those who are versed in musical terminology, and those who are not.Speaking directly to the contemporary artist, working examples are drawn from a wide range of musicals throughout Part One, before a full case study analysis of Everybody's Talking About Jamie brings all the ideas together in Part Two. Part Three offers a range of practical exercises for anyone creating new musicals, particularly composers and their collaborators.

Dramaturgy is at the heart of any musical theatre score, proving that song and music combined can collectively act as drama. The Musical Theatre Composer as Dramatist: A Handbook for Collaboration offers techniques for approaching a musical with the drama at the centre of the music. Written by a working composer of British musical theatre, this original and highly practical book is intended for composers, students of musical theatre and performing arts and their collaborators. Through detailed case studies, conceptual frameworks and frank analysis, this book encourages the collaboration between the languages of music and drama. It offers a shared language for talking about music in the creation of musical theatre, as well as practical exercises for both composers and their collaborators and ways of analysing existing musical theatre scores for those who are versed in musical terminology, and those who are not.Speaking directly to the contemporary artist, working examples are drawn from a wide range of musicals throughout Part One, before a full case study analysis of Everybody's Talking About Jamie brings all the ideas together in Part Two. Part Three offers a range of practical exercises for anyone creating new musicals, particularly composers and their collaborators.

Fairy Tales in Musical Theatre surveys the importance of the genre of fairy tale to musical theatre in an accessible study that's ideal for students and theatre fans alike. The book explores narrative theory, discussing the importance of archetypal narratives and characters in musicals, and in psychoanalytical interpretations of fairy tales and their relevance to musicals that draw on fairy tale tropes.Fairy Tales in Musical Theatre analyses musicals from across the decades which have used fairy tales as an inspiration and source for adaptation, from Once Upon a Mattress and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, to the National Theatre’s The Light Princess and Hex, and the Disney canon that has brought fairy tales and musicals together for years. Published in Methuen Drama's Topics in Musical Theatre series, Fairy Tales in Musical Theatre is a concise and accessible academic study that highlights the meeting points between key features of both form and genre, demonstrating why the two are such a popular match.

The first critical companion to the world of multi-Tony Award-winning American musical theatre practitioner Jason Robert Brown, hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim” (Philadelphia Inquirer).Rather than taking a show-by-show approach, Jason Robert Brown: A Critical Companion is structured according to topics of analysis, moving through three parts: Techniques, Identities, and Adaptation. All of Robert Brown's main musicals are covered, including the song cycle Songs For a New World; chamber musical The Last 5 Years; original musicals Parade and Mr Saturday Night through to adaptions such as The Bridges of Madison County and Urban Cowboy. The book fuses together narratological analysis with musicological analysis, considering the influences on Brown’s music and the way that words and music portray protagonists, narrative, relationships and identities across his works. The final chapter gives comparative analysis to garner a portrait of Jason Robert Brown as an artist.Published in Methuen Drama's Musical Theatre Critical Companion series this book combines traditional essays with primary research and practitioner interviews that offer a fresh look at key moments of musical theatre as a form.