Customer Reviews

Junior Broadway: How to Produce Musicals with Children 9 to 13

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This book assumes you are a teacher or administrator at a school, and so have the entire support of the staff at your disposal. The art teacher takes care of the sets, the music teacher works on your vocal solos and provides the instrumental portion of your musical. Home Ec teacher does the costumes, etc. Well, sign me up for that educational experience! There is not a lot of practical help in this book. It's mostly about organization and delegation, which, if you're taking on a "Junior Broadway", you've probably got already. Better to solicit help from parents of your cast, people who will really care if the production goes well.

The review quoted from Book Report, which gave this book a "Highly recommended," says, "There is enough general information here to warrant use by any group producing a musical." On the whole, I must agree. However, I must take issue with at least one statement, found in my reading of my local library's copy of the first edition. If this one statement has been allowed to stand in the current edition, it turns an otherwise extremely useful tool for the inexperienced into a potentially expensive trap for the unwary. A producing group relying on this one statement, without corroborating it by a careful reading of the available materials on copyright law, including the licensing agreement they must sign to produce the show, could put themselves at unnecessary legal and financial risk. (And we all know how most non-lawyers, even many lawyers, glaze over at the prospect of reading the fine print in statutes and contracts -- the tendency is to rely on what someone else says it says, which is why it is so dangerous to have someone say it says what it doesn't.) The statement, found in Chapter II of the 1983 text, "Choosing and Adapting a Script", is: "Under the terms of your license to perform the show, you usually have the right to omit portions of the book, music and lyrics if necessary to simplify production. You will exercise this right at places in the script deemed unsuitable for young actors." I acknowledge that the standard operating procedure of almost every theater I have worked in, from the lowest level of educational theater to some professional companies, has been carried out in accordance with the assumed accuracy of this statement. However, this statement does not accurately reflect the wording of most licensing agreements, or the pertinent copyright law, which identifies "adaptation" as one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. It would be much more accurate to say, "Under the terms of your license to perform the show, you have absolutely NO right, except for those specifically enumerated in the licensing agreement, or authorized in the script or score itself, to omit or change any portion of the book, music and lyrics for any reason, either to simplify production, or to comply with local community standards of language or behavior. Permission for ANY such changes must be requested and obtained in writing before the performance. Failure to do so may result in a suit for copyright infringement." Those wanting more information can read the article "Who owns the rights? Copyright, the law and licensing the show" in the Summer 1999 issue (Volume 10, Number 4) of Teaching Theatre, the journal of the Educational Theatre Association. (It is also available on-line, but since the amazon.com review guidelines exclude URLs, you will have to e-mail me at knscott@juno.com for it.)

The other two reviews currently available seem unecessarily critical over minor issues. The information about abridging and adapting scripts presented in this book is probably wrong in a strict legal sense, but the book is otherwise thorough and very practical. I have no interest in directing children's theatre, but I found this so engrossing I read it in one sitting. Much of the information is applicable to adult theatre as well. I found it to be almost a directing for dummies-type book. It does a great job of explaining how to handle people and avoid hurt feelings, and how to create sets and costumes, choreograph, delegate effectively, and schedule rehearsals. In the absence of having an experienced mentor on hand, this would be a great book for anyone interested in directing a show--or anyone interested in the process of putting on a play. Note: there is an earlier edition (1983) available.