Amateur Musical Theatre: The Good, Bad & Plain Ugly

It's been a while since I've had a proper rant and I can't keep my adoring fans waiting any longer for the next installment in the chronicles of my advancing career! What have I been up to? Well I've been doing a lot of amateur musical theatre and I have drawn several conclusions about what makes good and what makes very bad amateur musical theatre.

I firmly believe that the following principles are key to the success of ANY musical theatre venture, but specially the success of amateur ones.

1. MATERIAL SUITED TO THE ABILITY OF THOSE INVOLVED

This may seem like a no brainer, but you'd be surprised how many amateur groups get this wrong. I'm not only talking about material suited to the performers (can they sing it? can they dance it? can they act it?) but also the creative team.

Recently I had the misfortune to work on a musical where the MD was little more than a pub pianist. He employed a solution of re-arranging every song in the show to limit the technical difficultly of the piano part, but even then he couldn't play the arrangement. The nuances of the songs were completely lost as each was eventually reduced to slight variations on "umm pa, pa, pa, umm pa, pa, pa" and the songs didn't even resemble the original intention. That might have been acceptible if the MD could then play that.

It is simply no good to say "we want to do this show, so we will"; amateur companies definitely need to make sure that they are chosing material that is appropriate to their calibur of director, musical director and performers, otherwise it is just asking for trouble. I firmly believe it is better to do something simple and well rather than something complicated, badly.

2. APPROPRIATE ATTENTION TO DETAIL

Appropriate is the key word. I worked on a musical as a musician where great care had obviously gone into recreating a community hall with amazing realism right down to a noticeboard with community notices on it, light switches on the door and "no smoking" signs.

This was clearly a labour of love.

However, the creative team had become so wrapped up in the presentation of the set and other details like providing a full bar service, numbered seats (and we're talking a hall that only seated 100 people max!) and a glossy programme that they completely side stepped glaring errors such as the fact that beautiful set took 5 minutes to construct each scene change. 5 minutes... in the dark. 5 minutes in the dark with no scene change music. 5 minutes, in the dark with no scene change music and a set that squeeked as it was rolled on and off the stage. Eventually the rather clueless director recognised the problem and cut the scene changes in half but re-blocking some of the action in the same location. Why this wasn't done before the dress rehearsal is anyone's guess?

Their focus when it came to detail also overlooked included making sure that the cast was singing in the same key as the band. This wasn't their fault. They were faced with a musical director who's approach to song coaching was to say "we'll run through it a few more times". Unless you tell your, otherwise quite gifted singers, that they are flat or sharp or that they are missing their cues you cannot expect them to get any better on thr 50th run through as they did on the 5th. You also need to be able to diagnose the problems and solve them yourself as an MD, not just say "listen to the CD and you'll get the hang of it". That is - listen to the CD which is in a completely different key and tempo and you'll be fine.

Amateur directors need to be able to focus on the foundation of good theatre and get the basics right. This should be their primary focus when it comes to detail. Questions like "are the details of the concept, the blocking, the songs being performed correctly?". The finer things can come later, ability permitting, but everything from the concept to the performances, should be established with the simple approach of getting the bare bones right - not getting the bare bones wrong and then heaping a pile of extra crap. You can dress up dogshit all you like but it's still going to look and smell like dogshit when you're done.

3. AVOIDING FIXATING ON THE MATERIAL/ADOPT GOOD TECHNIQUE

There are certain basics and techniques that one should always seek to apply whatever the show, whatever the level. For example, in performance, good breathing, adequate projection (your comedy accent is genius, but seems as I can't actually understand what you're saying I don't know if it's supposed to be funny or not), good posture, good singing technique. Practises such as warming up thoroughly before a rehearal or a show, may seem common place amoung the higher-level amateur productions but believe me these basics are missed thoroughly by some. There is such a preoccupation with the material that is being performed that the basics of good performance get thrown out of the window, if they were even in the room in the first place.

As a director it is your job to not only provide performers with a sense of accomplishment when they have finished the run but also the feeling that they have honed their craft in the process. Therefore what is otherwise going to be a mediocre performance, could be significantly enhanced if all your performers are taught how to breathe, led to warm up jolly well told to give up smoking. They don't even have to give up smoking permanently... oh no... I'm sure a compromise could be reached so that they gave up smoking during the rehearsal. Oh and drinking as well. Trust me love, you're really not going to be at your best vocally after 3 pints of Stella and half a pack of Malborough Lights.


Really it's that simple. 3 key points that should be remembered to avoid shitty amateur theatre disasters.

So some of these recent experiences have been comforting in so far as they have shown me how far I've come in a year and how I should continue to set my sights higher. Still I'm just itching to put myself forward as a musical director or director next year. It will be a great exercise in self-control.