Breaking into Song: Why You Shouldn't Hate Musicals

by Adam Lenson

Overview

“This book is a fascinating cri de coeur and made me question
everything I think about musicals” Alan Cumming

A book for those who can’t stand musicals, those who love them, and every theatregoer, academic, practitioner and student in between. Breaking Into Song explores theatre’s most divisive genre, and asks the fundamental questions:

• What makes a musical?

• Why are they so polarising?

• And why have we allowed a form so full of possibility to become so repetitive and restrictive?

Through a series of essays, London-based director, dramaturg and musical theatre specialist Adam Lenson asks what audiences can do to stay open minded and what creatives can do to make new musicals better. Examining both sides of the divide, he explores how those who both love and hate musicals can expand the possibilities of this misunderstood medium.

Dive in and discover the political foundations of the form, the difficulties in pinning down exactly what it is, the connections between musicals, video games, opera and comic books, and why a musical is, actually, a lot like a poopy baby.

“A passionate and cogently argued call to arms and a very enjoyable read”
Lyn Gardner

 “This book is really brilliant. If you care about/enjoy/work in/struggle with/want to understand/have concerns for the state of musical theatre, it is essential reading. Hugely recommended”
Howard Goodall

“I would advise anyone who… hates musicals… to read this book”
Musical Theatre Review

“Bold, inclusive and willing to adapt, Adam Lenson’s blueprint for musical theatre
above all looks at sustainability.”
The Reviews Hub

Contents:

Breaking Into Song
The Wound
On Hating Musicals
Cash Machines
Musicals and Comic Books
Superpowers
Musicals are Political
Poopy Babies
When Words Are No Longer Enough
Collaboration
Time and Memory
Photocopying a Photocopy
I’m Not a Genre, Not Yet a Medium
Expertise
What’s The Point?
Definitions
Audiences
Musicals and Video Games
Can Musicals Ever Be Cool?
The Triangle
Tiny Bowls
Musicals and Opera
Digging vs Telescopes
The Musical
Cardboard Cities
Musicals Cost Too Much
Autobiography
Opposites
Build it and They Will Come
What’s in a Name?
Replicas
Stacks
Making Space

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781914228025
Publisher:	Salamander Street Ltd.
Publication date:	09/02/2021
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.45(d)

About the Author

Adam is a London-based director, dramaturg, and producer who specialises in new musical theatre. 
 
Lenson's production company ALP Musicals develops artist led work that aims to challenge traditional ideas of what musicals look like, sound like, or are about. In 2017 he founded the concert series SIGNAL which has showcased the work of hundreds of writers from all over the world. 
 
Directing includes World premieres of Superhero, The Fabulist Fox Sister, Public Domain, Wasted, The Leftovers, The Sorrows Of Satan. European premieres include Ordinary Days, Little Fish, Whisper House and See What I Wanna See. Major revivals of the Rink, Songs for A New World and 35mm. 
 
He has numerous new shows in development for theatre, radio, television and film and is a tireless public advocate for new musicals and new writers. 
 
He was selected as one of the Stage 100 in 2021 for his contributions to new musical theatre and digital theatre.

Read an Excerpt

Musical theatre is a medium full of possibilities. As the intersection between music, song and storytelling there’s literally an infinite amount of different possible musicals. Musicals of different styles and tones and genres. Musicals that use song and scene in vastly distinct ways. Musicals that intersect with varied parts of the theatre ecology.

But musical theatre has come to be publicly defined by an extremely narrow range of examples. The form seems to be entirely defined by a small set of ‘those musicals’. Now I would firstly say that I love a great number of those musicals. However, I am forever amazed by how much power a small selection of shows have over the perception, possibility and range of this form. I don’t need to name them. You know the ones I mean.

I will say again that I love and admire many of these shows. But they are but a narrow fraction of the possibilities of the form. Music and stories are infinite and so are musicals. I also feel that by even a small group of musicals being collated together, both here and in public, consciousness sort of flattens out any of the radical choices that these shows made.

The extreme prominence of a small selection of shows that largely function in a certain way leads to musical theatre being a medium that people think they can understand with very few data points. My sense has always been that people decide what musical theatre is faster and in a more lasting way because the public perception of the medium is linked to this very small range of works. Moreover, even as new data points come into the zeitgeist, I find a startling number of people still refer to the same canonical data points and think of any new shows as anomalies.

For some reason, people seem to think they can understand the form of musical theatre from this incredibly small number of shows. How many films would you say need to be watched before you make a judgement on the possibilities of the medium? How many books would you say need to be read before you can make a judgement on the possibilities of the medium? I’m not trying to sound elitist. I truly believe in the democratisation of form. I just wonder why musicals get judged more quickly and more lastingly.

Table of Contents

Breaking into Song 7

The Wound 11

On Hating Musicals 17

Cash Machines 23

Musicals and Comic Books 29

Superpowers 33

Musicals are Political 39

Poopy Babies 43

When Words are No Longer Enough 47

Collaboration 53

Time and Memory 59

Photocopying a Photocopy 65

I'm Not a Genre, Not Yet a Medium 71

Expertise 77

What's the Point? 83

Definitions 89

Audiences 95

Musicals and Video Games 101

Can Musicals Ever be Cool? 107

The Triangle 113

Tiny Bowls 119

Musicals and Opera 125

Digging vs Telescopes 131

The Musical 137

Cardboard Cities 145

Musicals Cost too Much 151

Autobiography 155

Opposites 159

Build It and They Will Come 165

What's in a Name? 169

Replicas 175

Stacks 181

Making Space 187

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'This book is a fascinating cri de coeur and made me question everything I think about musicals.' Alan Cumming

Editorial Reviews

'This book is a fascinating cri de coeur and made me question everything I think about musicals.' Alan Cumming

'A passionate and cogently argued call to arms and a very enjoyable read.' Lyn Gardner

From the Publisher