What do we mean when we say the word “Broadway?” First of all, we mean that Broadway is a certain way of telling stories and understanding how to tell stories with music. Broadway doesn’t have to be a book musical necessarily. It’s this other kind of thing altogether, and there’s a vitality, a connection, and an energy from within that will never die.

There’s something about shows-topping numbers, there’s something about the spectacle, and there’s something about the flash of Broadway. Combined, we begin to see this hybrid thing that allows for other things to happen. Often, new or unexpected things. When we think about shows like “Oklahoma,” we can recognize these traits.

Performing Arts Done By Musicians

“Tommy” was a musical by The Who. The band wanted to tell a story, but they were also rock musicians, so they combined the two for one ultimate experience. There are other music-heavy shows like this, too. Stew and Heidi did a show called “Passing Strange,” and then there’s the famous show “Hair.” There is a story happening in all of these shows, but you are experiencing them in different ways — often in a way that is closer to a concert.

British Invasion

Americans started to have a greater appreciation for some of the British Broadway shows, including “Phantom of the Opera,” written and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Another favorite was “Miss Saigon,” produced by Cameron Mackintosh. Mackintosh was making large shows that revolved around the spectacle of the theater. His performances were all about singing, dancing, and movement. Of course, they were also about the story, but the spectacle was equally as important.

Music Is Key

There’s both a connection and a separation between the music that folks are listening to on the street and the music in a Broadway musical that takes years to develop. Music is popular because people are listening to it right now, and it’s providing them with something at that moment. When people hear music from Broadway shows like “Tommy” outside of the theater, they question it. “What’s that sound? Where is it coming from? I’m not in the theater right now. I want to see the stories that are told with this sound.”

Because of this, you see many people trying to understand the global power of music. Lin-Manuel Miranda was able to pull all of that together in a way. He has this encyclopedic understanding of the hip-hop and rap phenomenon, and he also has a deep knowledge of the history of American musical theater.

Lin-Manual Miranda put his knowledge of music and history together in a wildly successful story about the founding figures of the United States and the American Revolution. The twist was that the cast was primarily made of people of color. This show was popping because it showed multiple forms and multiple ways to use them. Broadway can hold all kinds of stuff.

When starting a performing arts project from the very beginning, it’s important to understand exactly what kind of production you have. It’s very different to produce a piece that needs a very affluent audience, for example, than it is to produce a piece that would be perfectly happy downtown in one of these warehouses. An example might be when I first saw “Little Shop of Horrors” when it was done off Broadway, more like off off Broadway.

The paint was peeling on the walls, the springs were coming through the bald, frayed seats. You felt like you were taking your life in your hands to get down to that part of the East Village. When Audrey sang about somewhere that’s green, you really knew she needed to get somewhere that’s green. What that showed is that the producers of that piece, the creators of that piece, had a really solid understanding of the context that would serve that piece, especially at the beginning.

It often seems that when a young playwright has a first treatment of a script, or a young group of actors comes together and talks about wanting to create a piece of theater on a certain theme, that one member of the team might have one way of describing the theme, and the second, third, and fourth members might have something that was just a little bit different. My response is, “Are you sure you all want to make the same thing?” And again, it’s not about rigidity or making everything homogeneous, but it’s being able to answer that core specific question, “What is it? What is the thing that you want to make, and who do you want to make it for?”

I’m from Los Angeles, California, and I remember there was a performing arts group that I worked with that my grandma found from “LA Weekly” magazine or whatever. It was called “Rock Theater,” and we would sing rock music and theater music. It was my training ground because I was with other students, other young people, that loved what I loved. I was no longer this oddball. I could express myself and sing “Annie” at the top of my lungs and feel like other people would sing along and know the words.

Why am I sharing this part of my life with you today? I think it’s important to have a safe place in your community where you can go to truly express yourself and find acceptance. Theater is that for so many people. I know it was definitely that place for me.

Inspiration Found in Communities

I recently saw “Hercules” at the Public Theater as part of the Public Works program. The musical had professional actors. I had friends that were in it. But, then, the production also had actors from the local community who had never been on a stage before. They had to do their pieces. They had to make this production together.

It was so inspiring. They had people of all ages in it.

I think about it, and I remember myself as a young person. I think about how incredible it would have been to have shared a stage with professionals at a young age and just watch them and learn from them. Although I think it’s so important that Broadway is one stop and one place where incredible theater happens, never forget that amazing theater experiences can happen all over.

It’s important. It’s why I believe it’s important when I do a concert. It’s one of the things that I love because some people who attend say, “I could never make it to New York, but here you are singing this for me.”

Online Performing Arts Education

While pursuing a performing arts education and after, it’s important that you give back to your community. As far as you go, it’s important to look back and also take some people with you. Don’t ever forget where you came from wherever you go in life. Don’t ever forget that the more you give back to your community, the more your community continues to thrive and give back to everyone.

I would say that Broadway, in terms of musical theater, started in the 19th century. Most histories of musical theater point to a production called “The Black Crook,” which began in 1866.

It was this extravaganza. It was a five-and-a-half hours show. But people didn’t sit and watch the whole thing. They would see part of it, and then they would go to dinner. They might come back, play cards or throw things at the stage. If you were a theater-goer in 1866, you would also talk a lot. Theater was a very raucous and public kind of activity back then. The modern equivalent would be like you playing a TV loudly in the background.

Why Is “The Black Crook” Important?

“The Black Crook” didn’t really have a plot. It had pyrotechnics. It had all kinds of lighting and stage effects. At that time, theaters kind of resembled navy battleships. The lower levels looked like engine rooms, and they had these massive machines that could change the sets very quickly and do all kinds of amazing things.

“The Black Crook” also had ballet dancers. In the production’s origin story, this troupe of ballerinas were going to perform, and, supposedly, the theater where they planned to perform burned down. Theater fires happened a lot back in those days, especially when using gas lighting in structures made of wood and decorated with fabric.

But, supposedly, this troupe of ballerinas and production were in this theater, and they decided to produce this special dance routine. In it, the ballerinas were naked. I don’t really mean “naked,” but at the time they were wearing clothes considered very, very scandalous for that era.

“The Black Crook” was a very risqué, burlesque kind of thing. And, yet, it went on and on for 474 performances. It was this phenomenon.

Online Performing Arts Education

From “The Black Crook,” we can learn, as performers and other performing arts professionals and students, a lot of interesting things about theater, productions and audiences. We discover that stage effects and taboo displays can sometimes be enough to make a show that doesn’t have much of a plot a huge success. We learn that an interesting origin story makes a production a memorable historical event. During a performing arts education course, we can also learn through historical accounts of mistakes by past theater crews more about important safety concerns.

Let’s talk about flooring and how it impacts a dance.

Let’s say you’re working in tap shoes. Tap shoes, as we all know, have metal on the bottom of each shoe, right? Well, if you’re tapping, then that surface you’re tapping on is important.

Is it tile?
Is it wood?
Is it cork?
Is it slippery?
Is it sticky?

You need to know the answers to these questions to provide the best performance possible.

Furniture can also double as flooring, which means you need to know how all of the onstage elements interact together. These elements are going to give you wonderful choices. If you said, “Oh, I’d like them to dance on that piece of furniture, or I’d like them to tap on that piece of furniture.” Well, you need to make sure that the particular piece of furniture is, first of all, going to allow you to do that instead of unsafe for a dancer to use and a fall or collapse risk.

Performing Arts Education

Your online performing arts education can help you better understand all of the elements of a stage, set or other performance area. It opens your eyes to what you need to take into account to make a performance a success. It can also teach you how to do a better job at protecting yourself and others from common accidents.

The publicizing part is actually mostly complete if you are very clear about why you’re producing your show in an elevator pitch and already talking about your vision, strategy and execution plans to people who can help you achieve your dreams and goals. It’s merely a matter of thinking outside the box to find the people who can help you.

Reaching the Right Audience

I didn’t go to school to become a publicist, which means that my training came through real-world, hands-on experiences. One of the greatest gifts that has come my way over the years was the knowledge about how to attract interest in shows. It really is all about who you know in this industry, especially in a time when it’s actually extremely difficult to get reviews.

Obstacles in Every Direction

It’s especially hard to get reviews in New York City. This region is oversaturated. It’s just hard. There are only a handful of reviewers. There are only a few places you can go to actually get what you need in order to make a press kit, which is why you really have to think outside the box.

In my case, I use every possible method I can think of to reach potential reviewers, including postal direct mailers, email lists and social media. I use all of to get the word out.

When using these methods, you need to answer in engaging ways common questions like:

– What is your show about?
– Is there something very unique about your show that would be of interest?

Believe you me, there is a blogger out there who’s interested in that one thing, whatever it is, that makes your show worth people’s time and money. You merely need to explore the possibilities.

Online Performing Arts Education

It’s funny. This morning, I was working on something similar to this discussion in relation to thinking about how we create content. We think that if we can just find the stories, then we’ll be able to get outlets interested in our content.

Publicizing is more than just writing a press release and sending it out to everyone even though you do need to have one. A press release just lets people know what’s going on and when it’s happening. What you need more is the follow up.

To attract that interest, you need to have a clear idea of why you want specific publications, media outlets, bloggers and others, to come see your show. This is where your performing arts education can help you. Your courses can give you the knowledge and tools to come up with these answers and attract interest in your shows.

“Props are anything that an actor might touch or handle,” Gianni Downs says. “Sometimes you might refer to them as properties. And you can think of them in a couple of different ways.”

Hand props are props that actors will carry around with them. There are set props that may exist in a room, such as a furniture that an actor cannot move on their own. Then there are decorative props, such as curtains hanging on the wall or paintings that may be present. You can think of anything that isn’t built by the carpentry shop as a prop. These are frequently things that you might come across in your daily life.

Is the couch upholstered? What type of upholstery is it? Is it made of wood? Is it made of metal? These elements may tell the audience in a matter of seconds who the individual in a room is or what the play is about. This is considered to be performing arts.

When it comes to staging design, such small changes may significantly influence. And these are the kinds of judgments that a designer must make regularly.

And it is your responsibility to make those decisions. And your choices should be influenced by the program you’re working on as well as the characters that inhabit it. These skills can be acquired through online performing arts education.

Often, there will be a significant meal scene in many older programs. And this may be for a Christmas party or a particular function. A table scene can often serve as the focal point of an entire play.

One props designer told me that mashed potatoes are used in almost all her creations. As a result, she can shape it into a variety of different shapes. She can dye it in a variety of colors.

It’s also simple for people to consume. Furthermore, almost no one is allergic to it. So you’ll often see mounds of different things on a plate that people are eating. And it could be mashed potatoes.

Alcohol is another thing that is very common in the theater. So many shows revolve around people making poor choices. And those decisions are frequently made while under the influence of alcohol.

As a result, a large part of my job as a scene designer is to plan out where the furniture will be placed on the stage. The director and I will work closely together to determine where items will go, how they will be set, and what angle they will be.

Performing arts education helps in decision making. It’s a good idea to consider what kinds of chairs may exist in the environment you’re building. Are there any weapons? Is this a high-backed chair?

And if you’re going to drink on stage, you should drink something that looks like alcohol but won’t get the actor intoxicated. As a result, flat soda is frequently used. Food coloring and water can be used.

It may be fluids. I’ve heard of people using different teas to achieve different hues. And you can come across property designers who have recipe books for various types of booze, whether it’s brandy, whiskey, or something else. You can be seeking something, or the script might be asking for something.

In a theatrical context, one of the big things that you focus on is the band. You first ask yourself what the band is going to be and how many people will be in it. You often make that decision or at least start to formulate some possible answers before you ever speak to any orchestrator. Why? It all comes down to your production’s sound budget.

A Sound Budget’s Impact

While preparing a production, there will be issues because of the budget. Cost must be taken into account. We might say that we think we can afford four musicians or 14 musicians or 140 musicians, whatever the number that works for that production, but then we have to look at our budget before we go any further. The budget is essential to making a theatrical production work, after all. I must remind myself that I can’t be insensitive to those issues.

I have to look at that number and ask myself how do I make it work. Can I make that work? Do I feel I need to argue for more musicians?

Working Within a Budget

Somebody might say, for example, “You’ve got 12.” You might think: Okay. Well, we need to have this, that and the other to suit this style of music. Generally speaking, we have six, seven, or eight choices in say that kind of number, which are going to be absolutely essential.

If it’s a pop kind of score, you know you’re going to need drums, bass guitar, and people. These things are pretty obvious. You then think about what other band-related things you need. What other colors are you looking for within this production? What’s going to tell this story best?

You might then say to yourself: I really think I’m going to need to have 13 for this production, which means you must try to make a convincing argument to the GMs. Sometimes, it works. You get what you need. Sometimes, it doesn’t work, and then you have to find a way to make the score sound as good as it can within the confines of what’s available.

Performing Arts Education

One thing you learn more about through your online performing arts education is how the sound budget and other budgets impact a production. You also learn methods to help you try to make certain that a show will go on as planned even if a budget doesn’t support everything that would normally go into that particular production.

One of the fundamental truths about the theater is that it’s about community. Even if you have a physical theater, it’s still about the community. My favorite theater is the Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago at the Goodman, where I lived for 15 years. I live in Boston now, and soon there will be a new favorite Boston theater.

When you think about your favorite theater, you remember that it’s a place where the people would gather. That’s why it’s essential for theater companies and programs to engage in the local communities.

Theaters Canvassing Neighborhoods are Crucial for Performing Arts Programs

The primary responsibility of theater companies and programs is to link the physical theater buildings, spaces, and productions to multiple communities within a city. This is the key to a successful and thriving theater. You can’t just imagine a play, open the doors, and expect people to come. You have to engage with the local communities.

Even if the theater has subscribers, their goal and obligation is to impact the conversations within the society. Community education specialists and directors of community engagement will go out and build partnerships within local communities. Sometimes this includes productions where actors will go out and canvas local areas. They will go to places like schools and libraries to talk about the theater content and sociohistorical components of the production. They will discuss their own lives and stories to build connections with the people in the area. They are trying to convey that the community is not just for the actors; it’s for everyone. It’s everyone’s theater.

The fact is that the theater is always in need of new audiences. The theater building may be there for over 100 years, but it’s not enough to bring in the people by itself. The theater crew has to go out and do the work of bringing in audience members. Community specialists are responsible for going out and gathering the culturally aware people that create the evolving dynamic of theater audiences.

The benefit of this kind of canvassing work is that many people haven’t spent much time thinking about the theater, but they have studied it at some point. Remember those Shakespeare plays you had to read in high school. Now, you have an actual theater company talking about literature, language, self-expression, and the reality of transporting a person into the world of theater.

It doesn’t make a difference if you love Shakespeare or not. There is still an appreciation for his theater skills. Those skills of self-expression, telling a story concisely and passionately, and reading history through culture. These are the things that you want people to take with them when they leave the theater.

Theater Arts Bring Communities Together

There is a whole way of thinking with this kind of outreach. For example, interacting with the kids at school can quickly spread to other people that they know. The communication within the kids soon reaches their parents, grandparents, siblings, and neighbors. This sense of community is why this work is so important. Communities can be brought together through the arts.

When people think about the many different roles played in the theater, they often refer to only the actors on stage. They usually don’t think about the people who are out making the theater an active part of their lives. These are the people that work off-stage and behind the scenes.

These are the people that are working in offices somewhere. They talk with people in the neighborhood about what’s going on and the concerns surrounding those things.

The theater stage is also a great place to talk about social issues, including relationships and health issues. The theater is a way to acknowledge real problems that people can relate to. Every family is strained at some point in time. Those individuals who have to portray these issues in the theater can help make a difference in the real world.

All of these reasons and more are why the people who specialize in community engagement are so important. There is no one more active or integral in terms of a larger ripple effect of theater than these folks.

In musical theater, your book is a three-ring binder that has all of the songs that you sing for auditions. In this book, you should have everything that you’ve worked and honed and now sing really well.

Your Book Can Reveal Your Vocal Range

You should have one song, for instance, that you present as three different cuts. You can have an eight-bar cut, a 16-bar cut and a 32-bar cut. You can also have a full song. Having these cuts already available makes certain that you’re prepared no matter what they want to hear.

A lot of times, you go to an audition and you’re told, “Well, we’re running behind schedule. We’re only going to have you sing eight bars,” or they only want to see you perform 16 bars. You need to construct those 16 bars so that they show you not only you as a person, but they also show your acting chops and vocal range. Each cut has to be tailored to the needs of the audition, which means that you should have three or four versions of every song in your book.

You should also have a representation of all of the styles that you do well in your book. For example, you might have a Golden Age song from “Oklahoma” or something from “Jesus Christ Superstar” like “Heaven on Their Minds.” You should have a wide spectrum of songs that you do really well.

Two Books Make Life Easier

Your book, you must realize, is also your accompanist, which is why I actually have two books. I have a book of stuff that I’m working on that’s just for me. It it has my audition material in it too. I also have a book marked up for the accompanist that has only audition material in it.

Anything I might want them to do, such as crescendo or slow down at certain places, is marked in musical notation in the audition version of my book so the accompanist can see it and play it the way I want them to play it.

I make certain that each page of the book is inside of non-glare sheet protectors as well because I don’t want the accompanist to struggle when they sit down in an audition room under harsh fluorescent lighting. I want to make their life as easy as possible because then I can make the most of my only opportunity for that particular audition to perform at my best.

Your Performing Arts Education

This is only an introduction to the actor’s book. You can learn more tips for creating, using and maintaining this critical tool in your online performing arts education courses. Your performing arts studies can provide all of the details you need to make certain that your career takes off quickly once your formal academic education is complete.