Archive for the ‘Tell Me a Beautiful Lie’ Category
Tell Me a Beautiful Lie Website
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
So it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here, but on the off chance someone happens by, I thought I’d let everyone know what I’ve been up to. The website for my musical Tell Me a Beautiful Lie is up at http://tellmeabeautifullie.com - you can see the YouTube of the staged reading, read the latest (and much improved, IMO) script, or download mp3s of the score.
Currently I’m working on getting things ready to send off to theaters and contests and the like. You can “Like” my Facebook page if you want to stay posted.
Musical Staged Reading
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
In case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to, I’ve been busy putting the score and script together for an actual staged reading of Tell Me a Beautiful Lie - you can check out details at the updated website: http://www.tellmeabeautifullie.com.
It’s both exciting and intimidating all at the same time - auditions are next week at the Cambridge Public Library. It’ll be the first time I’ll have heard the show performed by actual actors/singers and a real pianist. There’s still plenty of details that have to come together for this to work, but we have a venue, an accompanist, and an audition space, so who knows? Maybe it’ll be as awesome as I think it’ll be!
The process has kind of devoured my free time, however, so I haven’t been blogging much or working much on RiftMaker. I know I still owe Z from It’s the Thought That Counts a response to her two postings to me - not sure when I’ll get to it, but I haven’t completely forgotten.
My friend who is helping me direct is moving to Texas in April, so it’s kind of now or never, as it stands.
Current projects: (1) proofreading the score/script, and (2) getting things organized for the auditions Thursday.
Hooray!
New Lyrics for “Harbor from the Storm”
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
It has been a long, nagging thing for me - I love the song “Harbor from the Storm.” It’s been in Tell Me a Beautiful Lie since very early drafts, and I feel like the story has always needed a big romantic number to let the audience understand Roman and Katya’s relationship, make Roman more human, etc. The trouble is that, since I’ve changed the show’s timeline, “Harbor from the Storm” no longer works dramatically in the place I’ve got it - the idea of promising to protect Katya from coming troubles (that he’s also excited about) just isn’t that pertinent to what’s going on at that point - which is, Katya is distraught that her worldview is no longer so simple as it was, and Roman has just rebuffed advances from another girl, and is fuming that the world doesn’t seem to share the ideals that he and Katya do.
So I’m brainstorming new titles for the song - I feel like a big romantic number is still required, and the tune works well enough, but maybe a new set of lyrics would do a world of good toward helping us feel Roman’s faithfulness to Katya, and perhaps set up a useful dramatic contrast with Katya’s newfound doubt. That is to say - Roman is principally convinced that he and Katya are soulmates because of their shared worldview. Her doubt, as such, is a little like cheating on him. That conflict could be mined I think.
I’ll keep you posted. (I say that a lot - but do I?)
Is Katya Too Passive?
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
It has been brought to my attention that Katya may be more compelling if she took a more active role in the story that Tell Me a Beautiful Lie tells - as it is, she pretty much reacts to forces and characters around her - Roman and Oleksander, the Russian Civil War, her aunt, etc.
On the one hand, I don’t see her as being completely passive - she is actively involved in making decisions and interpreting what’s around her. She doesn’t simply float along from thing to thing. She’s clearly thoughtful and intelligent. But is that enough? The only decisions that she makes - gradually allow Oleksander into her life, stay in Sevastopol, fire the gun - may not be played as things that she chooses so much as things that she has to do. (Of course, Katya’s personality, as are many of our own, is the type that would rather devolve responsibility by pretending she has to. Too much subtlety?)
And then, to compound defensiveness, I’m wondering whether an active protagonist even matters. The biggest, most successful musicals don’t necessarily have them. 1776 and My Fair Lady certainly tell great stories of a powerful personality on a quest for achievement - John Adams wants independence for America, Henry Higgins wants to pass off Eliza as a lady. But what about Fiddler on the Roof, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, and Wicked?
In Fiddler, Tevye, as the protagonist, doesn’t do much other than gradually bend to the forces that threaten his traditions and worldview, until he can bend no further. He clings to what he can, and reconciles with what he has to, so he’s not strictly passive, but he’s not on a quest either - his personal actions don’t drive the story. His daughters and the Russian army do. And yet, it’s an awesome story and one of my favorite musicals.
In Les Mis, Jean Valjean has pretty much achieved sainthood 15 minutes into the first act, and has no more character development to do. He has no quest larger than to live his saintly life in peace. Javert drives the action by zealously pursuing him, and the revolutionary students drive the action by starting a war in the streets. I’m sure there are people who view the story primarily through the lens of Enjolras and the other students, and so see it as a quest story. But others, I suspect, see it principally as a beautiful story of forgiveness through the lens of Valjean, or a tragic love story through the lens of Eponine - even though neither Valjean nor Eponine really drive the story by their actions.
In Phantom, Christine Daae is largely passive as well. The Phantom is the one on the quest, such as it is, and Christine only wants to be left alone. The force of the story comes from the Phantom as villain.
In Wicked, there’s an idea that Elphaba is on a quest, but that never once emotionally drives the story - will she meet the Wizard, like she dreams about in her first song? Will she triumph over the Wizard after his disillusionment at the end of Act I? Wicked has elements of a quest story, but the plot seems mostly uninterested in it - we never see Elphaba working hard to win the Wizard’s affection, we never get a good idea of how awful the Wizard is or an idea of what exactly Elphaba’s plan to beat him is and how she would accomplish it. Mostly, the story is about the love triangle and friendship between her and Glinda. She doesn’t really “do” anything to drive the story until her decision to flee at the end of Act I, at which point, the Wizard is more the one on the quest - to find her, use her as a convenient bad guy, etc etc.
Perhaps the larger point is that emotionally engaging stories don’t necessarily follow an easily-discernable plot arc covering an easily-expressed character change. Life is often more confusing and muddled, and I think people have the capacity to follow stories that aren’t simple and digestible, even if most people couldn’t articulate why a story moves them exactly. It’s more important to be emotionally honest, to have sympathetic, believable characters, and a plot that engenders suspense in some way. At least, that’s where I currently stand on the issue.
Perhaps you disagree?
Just So You Know
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
Progress is being made on Tell Me a Beautiful Lie. I’m currently working on writing the score down using Finale PrintMusic, which seems to have all the features that I need, but isn’t ridiculously expensive. I’ve got the first two songs scored. It’s slow going, but I’ll keep you apprised of my progress.
How to Get Started Writing the Score… Tomorrow
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
I’ve been perusing various “engraving” programs, or sheet-music writing tools. The idea here is actually to get my songs for Tell Me a Beautiful Lie written out so that folks can sing them, or at least try to sing them before telling me that it’s too high/too low/too awkward.
The two main packages, from what I can tell, appear to be Sibelius and Finale, but they’re both horrendously expensive, and it’s not clear that I need all their features. Fortunately, both programs offer a wide assortment of less expensive versions of their main packages with various features unceremoniously hacked off. It doesn’t seem like a terribly good way to design a program - I’m not sure that there’s a real meaningful line between Finale PrintMusic and Finale SongWriter that says, “Yes! I need a program that allows me to write lyrics but NOT space the lyrics legibly under the notes!”
Hopefully, PrintMusic will do the trick for me. Either way, it’s going to be a painstakingly tedious process.
A New “As Far As I Know”
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
I’ve been playing around with the idea of a new version for “As Far As I Know,” Katya’s plaintive song that ends the opening sequence (after “When the Red Morning Dawns”). I like the original song well enough, but I fear that it’s structure limits its memorability (the ostensible title is heard only twice, and no musical theme, with the exception of the connecting melody, ever repeats). You have to establish what kind of musical you are up front, and if you throw a wandering melody at the audience that early, they may get the impression that “Oh, this is THAT kind of show - a show with pretty but aimless music,” and first impressions are not easily counteracted.
So I’ve written another attempt at the melody, restructing the song so that the title appears more often and the main theme repeats, while still trying to retain that feeling of build-up that I liked so much from the original number. Let me know what you think.
KATYA:
As far as I know,
He’s still out there, somewhere…
Perhaps some cafe, still debating.
As far as I know,
He still writes me from there…
In his pack
There might be
A great stack
Of letters for me!
And somehow I know that he’s waiting…
Waiting for me.
As far as I know,
He still dreams he’ll kiss me
And I’m in the poems he’s creating
As far as I know
He will always miss me
Til he flees
From that war,
And he sees
His girl by the shore!
As far as I know,
He could ride tomorrow
Far from the storm that’s abating!
As far as I know,
There’s an end to sorrow -
Never fear!
Never doubt!
When it’s clear
Love will win out!
And somehow he’ll know, I’ve been waiting…
Waiting so long!
So long!
So long!
As far as I know…
“Harbor From the Storm” is Vulnerable
Friday, August 1st, 2008
So, after many months of being tired of my full-scale original Russian musical, Tell Me a Beautiful Lie, I’ve started thinking about it again, and I’ve got a couple of ideas for improving things.
I remain somewhat dissatisfied with the third quarter of Act I. This represents, story-wise, the gradual transition in Katya’s affections towards Oleksander. I’m still really pleased with the Act I finale, as well as the political discussion between Katya and Oleksander in the middle of Act I, but the items in between feel, well, not quite up to par.
“Harbor from the Storm” is one of the first songs I wrote for the musical, way back in my sophomore year at Harding, and it’s one that I’ve been doing my best to preserve from draft to draft, since I like it as much as I do. Nonetheless, pretty much any “how-to” guide on musical writing makes it pretty clear that the one song you have in there just because you like it is probably the song that most needs to go. (Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is fond of bringing up this rule for TV scripts, which often run long - the thing you need to cut is probably the one scene that gave you the reason for writing the script in the first place.)
So why is “Harbor from the Storm” vulnerable but not “Katya” or “Grace Abounding,” the other two “surviving” songs? Well, I managed to repurpose both of those songs in a way that pleases me, but “Harbor” remains largely the same - a love song with revolutionary overtones. Of course, it is not simply an “I love you” song, but the melody says “I love you” song, and rhythmically, it comes after “A Certainty Comes,” which is similar in tone and feeling. Therefore, if any part of the play is going to be the part where folks start going to the bathroom, I think “Harbor” is it.
“I love you” songs are usually the most boring parts of a musical. “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “Lion King” worked miracles by making the love songs actually UN-boring, but even early Disney movies had go-to-the-bathroom-worthy love songs (”So This is Love,” this means you). The conventional wisdom is that such songs bore because they don’t reveal anything you don’t already know, but in point of fact, most songs don’t, nor should they, since lyrics are harder to glean important information from. Love songs just tend to be slow, express cliches, and insofar as both lovers are singing simultaneously at each other, reek of unreal emotions.
On the other hand, folks seem to like “All I Ask of You” and “As Long As You’re Mine.” Neither of them are bad songs, although they are cliche ridden and the lovers are singing sentiments at each other, so maybe “Harbor” can survive somehow. On the other hand, I don’t think “Harbor” is as strong melodically as either of those two songs, and they both fall in the show after more exciting moments as a sort of release. “Harbor” doesn’t, and I’m not sure that it can.
It’s also just hugely awkward to have the song sung to a Katya who isn’t actually there. I think it doesn’t work, so I want to replace it.
There are a couple of interesting emotions or angles I want to play up with Roman, make him more of a real, live human being you can sympathize with. The path from idealist to murderer is not really all that difficult - “compassion turns to anger turns to hate” and all that. But I want to show that Roman still has at least some of the compassion left in him - he isn’t just all anger. But the paranoia that is at the root of Nationalism Socialism and Communism has already taken strong root, and he is at war with himself. Therefore, I think a darker, more rocking song illuminating Roman’s personal turmoil might just hit the spot, liven up the act, and make Katya’s choice between the two men more wrenching (hopefully).
I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.