We'd love to read your musical. But you need to know that we're not producers; that's not what we do. We develop musicals. Sure, we know plenty of producers and occasionally recommend scripts to them, but what we do is give you honest, constructive feedback to help you make your musical even better than it currently is. If that's what you're looking for, then click here to decide what level of evaluation you'd like (from 3-5 page written evaluation to 2-3 hour detailed video feedback to 6-8 hour staff table reading and feedback).
ADDED BONUS: Every script submitted to us before the December 15th deadline (at any level) will automatically be entered into our Search for New Musicals. First Prize is a workshop session with our repertory company and a public reading in our Concert Reading Series.
Our Writers' Workshop has been around for four decades and is going stronger than ever....we've revised the whole workshop this year to reflect the contemporary musical, and we're using all-new Pulitzer Prize winning texts from 2002 and later.
The first year is a very intense nine-month writing curriculum in which you have new collaborators every month, learning from what's new in the contemporary musical theatre scene as well what's worked on stage for the past eighty years. You'll write ballads, comedy songs, musical scenes, duets, ensembles, as well as five-minute musicals and a final 15-minute musical (which we'll stage in a professional theatre in Los Angeles). In your second-year, if you're invited back, you'll write a whole full-length musical, from outline to full-draft. But the Writers' Workshop doesn't end after the second year: there's plenty more collaborative opportunities, and monthly meetings, and labs, and a whole community of composers, lyricists and bookwriters writing all kinds of shows, from children's shows to operas to experimental shows and internet musicals.
This is the entry point for bookwriters, lyricists, and composers wishing to get involved with ANMT's venerable writers' workshop! Composers, bookwriters and lyricists are matched together in different teams each month, and each month write a song or a scene based on an assigned text.
The curriculum studies some classic models, and give writers and composers the opportunity to create traditional musicals, but beginning this year there’s a new focus on the Musical of Today and the Musical of the Future; all new song assignments based on Pulitzer and Obie Award winning plays from 2002 and later.
The Open Workshop is an informal gathering of ANMT writers and performers. Here's where you're encouraged to break the rules! No staff critique; no one telling you what to do. It meets once a month. There are actors and pianists on hand to play and sing what you bring them. Come join the Open Workhop and play!
Don't live in Los Angeles? You can still participate in a lot of the curriculum which is part of the Writers' Workshop via our sister website, WritingMusicalTheatre.com. Online courses, with one-on-one feedback from Academy instructors, on lyric writing, book writing, outlining, prosody, metaphor, choruses, verses. 50 videos, countless online interactive tests, exercises, handouts and assignments. We're adding more interaction all the time. Come write with us! www.WritingMusicalTheatre.com
We'll provide you five actors, a director, a stage manager, a producer and a theatre. All you need to do is write the show. In eight weeks. Your first draft is due about ten days after you meet your actors; then we'll rehearse it, and give you feedback. You revise it and submit a second draft, which we rehears give you more feedback. You revise the final draft -- then we rehearse it, stage it and invite the audience! From page to stage in less than two months.
The Advanced Lyric Lab is offered online only for graduates of the Lyric Lab, and covers additional topics such as Character Through Diction, Linear Prosody, Conversational Prosody, Additional Progressions, Metaphor, Simile, List Songs and Twist Songs. It concludes with a powerful unit on Metaphor and Simile in musical theatre lyrics, and continues with advanced metaphorical concepts such as synecdoche, allegory, metonymy, periphrasis, apostrophe, mixed metaphor and parable.
The Book Lab focuses on the spine of the musical: its structure. How does a musical tell a story in a way that's different from any other medium? How do you set up a song? How do you keep the story going during a song? How does a musical handle exposition, character arcs, conflict, ensemble point of view, etc. A fascinating and fun way to study how musicals are structured. A required element for the ANMT Core Curriculum, this course is also available online.
See new musicals before anyone else has even heard of them! We have a Concert Reading Series, an annual 15 Minute Musicals celebration, plus a Salon Series featuring such musical theatre greats as Stephen Sondheim, Jason Robert Brown, Jeff Marx, Winnie Holzman, Richard Sherman, Stiles & Drewe, and many more. Click to buy tickets, or join our reservation lists.
You want to write the next Broadway smash, or the next poignant Pulitzer-Prize winning musical. Perhaps you already have. The Full-Length Curriculum breaks the process down, step-by-step. This is the second year of our Writers' Workshop. Bookwriters, composers and lyricists team together on an intense nine-month collaboration, creating a complete full-length musical, culminating in a reading in the spring. ANMT staff guides the team from idea to outline to initial presentations to full-draft. Musicals in the Full Length Curriculum are also considered as possibilities for the Academy's concert readings series.
Whether you’re a seasoned vet looking to sharpen your craft, or whether you’re new to writing musical theatre lyrics, the Lyric Lab’ll help you focus your lyrics and give them impact and drama.
The Lyric Lab’s made up of two dozen digital videos. The online Lyric lab covers powerful tools such as: The Verse, the Chorus, Prosody, Structure, Rhyme, Poetic meter and form, Scansion, Spotting Songs, Progressions, and even a unit on how to decide what structure might be right for your song.
Videos, handouts, interactive tests, and a writing assignment for each unit. One-on-one feedback, usually in mp3 format.
Work at your own pace -- take one month or six months; whatever works for your schedule and workload. Learn and write at home, or wherever you have a workstation.
A self-contained unit focuses on metaphor and simile in musical theatre lyrics, and continues with advanced metaphorical concepts such as synecdoche, allegory, metonymy, periphrasis, apostrophe, mixed metaphor and parable. Currently offered as part of the Online Advanced Lyric Lab, this unit is offered as a stand-alone for the very first time. Because it's online, you can write at home, or wherever you have a workstation.
The Outlining Lab is a practical course designed to lead you through six steps toward developing an outline for a new musical. Lab author Elise Dewsberry says 'An outline can be an invaluable writer's tool for clarifying the structure and story arc of a musical idea. It can then serve as a blueprint for the rough draft that the collaborators will use to develop the new musical. Writers who skip this important step in the development process are likely to find themselves bogged down with a partially written new show that is riddled with logical inconsistencies, and does not compellingly deliver the intentions of the creative team.'
In the Outlining Lab, you will be lead step-by-step through the process of developing a musical idea from concept through to a working outline, with detailed constructive feedback along the way from your evaluator. By the end of this ten-unit course, you should have a well-developed and detailed outline that will solidly prepare you for the collaborative task of writing your new musical. Don't start writing until your outline is rock solid!
The foundation of lyric writing: Prosody, or matching the stresses of music with stresses in the lyric. Topics include Bad Prosody, Repairing Prosody, Linear Prosody, Euphony, and Poetic Meter versus Spoken and Musical Meter. Currently offered as part of the Online Advanced Lyric Lab, this unit is offered as a stand-alone for the very first time. Because it's online, you can write at home, or wherever you have a workstation.
A comprehensive study of the Verse, the Chorus and the Refrain, and how they're used in musical theatre. Trace each structure historically, examine them in contemporary literature, and write your own examples of each. Currently offered as part of the Online Lyric Lab, this unit is offered as a stand-alone for the very first time. Because it's online, you can write at home, or wherever you have a workstation.
Learn the details, subtleties and power of a professional piano-vocal score; make your musical stand above the rest of the crowd. How does a musical score differ from standard sheet music, or an opera score, or a lead sheet? How to handle cues? Incidental music? Study swing notation. Vocal ranges. Preparing a score to maximize rehearsal time. An invaluable course of study for the serious musical theatre composer. A required element for the ANMT Core Curriculum, this course is also available during the summer Boot Camp.
The Talent Bank is a valuable resource that ANMT offers to writers and producers looking for musical theatre talent for readings, workshops, and productions of new musicals. Scroll through our community of musical theatre performers where you will find headshots, resumes, and often sound and video clips.
Broadway writers and producers, Los Angeles artistic directors, independent producers, entertainment attorneys, all gathered together for a jam-packed weekend devoted to musical theatre writers...and how to get their work produced! ANMT hosted the conference in 2006 and 2008, and will be hosting the 2010 conference, currently scheduled for July.
ANMT hosts an on-going series of Salons with musical theatre luminaries. Past Salon guests have included Stephen Sondheim, Jeff Marx, Jason Robert Brown, Winnie Holzman, George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, Richard Sherman, Charles Strouse, Marty Panzer, and Arthur Kopit. Click here to find or when's our next Salon, or to join our email list for a reminder.
