My guest this week is author Rebecca Applin Warner, whose new book is titled The Musical Theatre Composer As Dramatist — A Handbook For Collaboration.

As frequent listeners to this podcast have no doubt figured out by now, my primary interest in musical theater is in the storytelling — especially how the bookwriter, composer, lyricist, choreographer, director and designers all come together to dramatize that a musical’s story and characters, and how they bring that first to the page, and then to the stage. I firmly believe that every musical, drama or comedy, lives or dies on the strength of its story and the ability of the creative team to tell that story effectively. This book gets right to the heart of that with fascinating analysis of how effective musicals are made, and detailed case studies that serve as enlightening examples of how to do it.

Rebeca Applin Warner is an award-winning composer with extensive experience both writing musicals and teaching in a variety of degree programs in Musical Theatre and Performing Arts.She has an undergraduate degree in Music from the University of Cambridge, a masters in Composition for the Screen from the Royal college of Music and a PhD in musical theater analysis. Her previous publications include chapters in The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical Theatre and in Reframing the Musical, alongside publication in the Studies in Musical Theatre Journal.

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