Customer Reviews

Let's Put on a Musical!: How to Choose the Right Show for Your School, Community, or Professional Theater

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Filichia is certainly a maestro when it comes to knowledge of the musical theatre. His book is both a fun, educational read for anyone with a zest for Broadway and Beyond, but it also serves its true purpose: It can help you choose a musical better than any "how to" guide on the market. Although it is missing a few licensers (WHere's Guilbert and Sullivan) and it hasn't quite caught up to ALL the revivals, it's still an excellent guide to helping your community, school, pr professional theatre find the best possible show.

Peter Filichia,the former columnist for the now defunct Theater Weekly,knows musical theater. In his informally written,enthusiastic book,How to Put on a Musical,he offers sage advice for schools that have the ability,determination,and fortune to produce a musical but don't have the unlimited budget of the Schuberts. He casts a roving eye over the 100+ years of musical theater and divides up the riches into categories of the tried and true musicals (Carousel,Annie Get Your Gun), recent moneymakers (Annie,Godspell),musicals with a predominately male cast (The Boys of Syracuse),musicals that demand significant vocal talent (Candide),musicals tha require proficient dancers ( A Chorus Line),and so on.

Filichia also offers brief synopsises of the musicals,which is particularly helpful with the lesser-known shows. He also informs you of the necessary props,costumes,characters,famous songs from the shows (if any),and inventive publicity activities that can be done to promote the show (some are ingenous,while others are strange or dull).

Perhaps the most important thing that Filichia offers are the pros/cons of each musical-this is especially crucial for the schools that need to censor their dramatic presentations. If the storyline is suggestive or if the libretto contains foul language,you are duly notified. In less serious,yet just as important circumstances,Filichia points out unusual props (like an iron lung for City of Angels),difficult dialects (such as the local dialects for Oklahoma!),and if the musical is too familiar with audiences (such as Fiddler on the Roof).

America's grammer school,high school,and college drama departments need all the help they can get. With Filichia's understanding,chatty book,the directors of the aforesaid departments receive a helping hand. For curious,interested devotees of musical theater (such as myself),this is a book suitable for browsing and discovering unknown gems of the musical stage

I got a job teaching high school drama despite having zero experience doing it. Worse, the only musicals I knew and had seen were "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera." So, when the band and choir directors starting throwing ideas for shows at me I was at a total loss. How would I know, without reading, listening to, and/or seeing every show they mentioned if it was a good idea or not?

Then, I found this book. Now, when the choir director tells me she wants to do "Lil Abner" I can reply that it seems dated. Or, if she wants to do "Flower Drum Song," I can tell her that we don't have enough Asians in our pool of talent. I can counter to her that "Into The Woods" is recommended for high schoolers, despite her objections to the contrary. I can recommend that we perform "Little Shop of Horrors" because it is a periennial money-maker and kids love it!

The book is divided into sections like "Shows for a big budget" or "Musicals that rely heavily on costumes". There's "Musicals that feature choreography" and "Musicals with Little Choreography." It's helpful to find the shows grouped together like this.

Then, it breaks down the show, giving a synopsis, assests, liabilities (often the most important information!!!), cast needed, etc. If you're passingly familiar with a show, this is all you would need. If you don't know the show at all, this is enough to warrant further investigation or to rule it out entirely.

I love this book. I would be lost without it. The only bad thing about it is that it doesn't have every single last musical ever created in it! But, it must contain more than two or three hundred shows listed, so that should be enough to get you by. I highly recommend this book.

If you are working in community theater or a school setting, this book is invaluable. There are some strange omissions, but a huge number of shows are included and thoroughly covered. A lot of the information is not usually found elsewhere: comments on needed props, set, costuming, general pros and cons. I have used it over and over again.

Arrived in a timely manner, however this is the exact same book as the prior edition. We went through it page by page for comparison.

I was expecting new shows, updated synopsis', but found none of it, only a different cover. I, for one am very disappointed.

I find this book to be a very useful source of information for our Community Theatre group. We recently tried to cast a show and AGAIN came up short in the singing men department. I hope to use this going forward to make more informed choices about potential musicals for our group.

This book is ideal for the community theater artistic director or school teacher who is looking for a musical to put on.

The title implies to me that here you will find instructions on how to stage the performance. Instead it's about selecting the play you might want to put on.

And it's description of some plays you might want to consider is very good. It gives you the story of what's happening, but far more information of a specialized nature that you need to know. For instance, how many performers, what kind of sets, costumes, props, special effects, etc. A very important detail given about the plays is where to go get rights. This can save you a lot of time.

I have only three complaints about the book. First it needs updating, there are a lot of new plays you might consider. Second, it needs a section on smaller plays. My stage needs plays with 6-8 people, few of the ones listed here are that small. Third, the book needs to be about three times as long, I'd like to see all the plays that are available in a format done like this.

This useful book sets out to do for musicals what Theodore Shank's "500 Plays" does for the theater: provide plot synposes, production notes, and useful background for a wide variety of shows. It's aimed at theatre groups, but it's equally enjoyable as a reference guide to musicals for the general reader -- perhaps the best one of its type in existence.

For each show, the entry contains: the creators; background on its original run, including awards won; a plot outline; assets and liabilities; roles; dances; sets, costumes and props; instrumentation; marketing suggestions; production suggestions; resources (for example, videos of the show); and details of the rights.

The book was clearly a labour of love, and it shows sometimes in the inconsistent treatments of different shows. Some shows get a one-sentence plot summary, for others it runs to several paragraphs. However, by and large it's an excellent resource, with its crisp, no-nonsense assessments of assets and liabilities. It packs a lot of information into a very small space.

Although there are glaring faux pas in this book..wrong vocal range, rather irrelevant political comments by the the author,and and to me the biggest mistake, giving away the ending of one musical, this book is a must for any musical director on any level. I have been involved in musical theatre in various forms and organizational levels for many years and really enjoyed looking into what the author had to say about some of my favorites. Having just witnessed a LONG awaited production of 1776 by my local community theatre group, I found the book right on the money in the case of a musical that has "too many men". Since the director has on occasion corresponded with Mr Filichia,I would imagine that he might have used the book as well. Would be nice if there were some kind of performer cross index. And the musical that he gave away the ending of is "Shenandoah"(talk about an overabundance of men!) So dont read the last paragraph of the description.....