NMI’s RESOURCE CENTER for musical theatre writers

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Welcome to the musical theatre writers’ Resource Center.

This is a FREE page hosted by New Musicals Inc.

As of September 1, 2024, we are NO LONGER maintaining a list of Producers and Theatres, or a Contests Listing. We have found we are no longer able to keep those lists properly up-to-date.

BUT we encourage you to check out the offerings from our friends at MusicalWriters.Com who have a wealth of resources for musical theatre writers!

What you can still find on this page is:

an idea library of thousands of royalty-free public domain stories and plots
a glossary of musical theatre terms (with audio/video examples)
access to short videos filled with tips and advice from NMI staff
access to critical feedback options and format guidelines from NMI

Enjoy!

FORMAT LIKE A PRO

Watch this FREE video to learn how to implement the FORMAT GUIDELINES specifically designed by New Musicals Inc. Make sure your script and score look professional and are ready to go into development.

Want more tools to help you get your formatting right?

*** VISIT OUR FORMATTING PRODUCTS PAGE ***

LIBRARY OF IDEAS (Royalty Free)

FREE ACCESS to a library of 1000+ downloadable royalty-free stories, plays, plots and other inspiring indeas we’ve found in the public domain for you. There’s a brief excerpt of every item in the library, so you can take a quick glance to see whether or not you want to read the whole text. In addition, the NMI staff has made annotations and recommendations for many of the titles in the library about their potential to become musicals. Save hundreds of hours of research and reading!

Here are some random samples from our listings of story ideas in the public domain:

Butterflies (by Rose Sidney)
Chautonville (by Will Levington Comfort)
The Bracelet (by Alfred Sutro)
The Yellow Cat (by Wilbur Daniel Steele)
A Normandy Joke (by Guy de Maupassant)

*** LINK TO COMPLETE LIBRARY OF IDEAS ***

IMPROVE YOUR CRAFT

New Musicals Inc. offers a whole series of professional online LABS for bookwriters, lyricists, and composers who are serious about improving their craft. This video is a FREE sample of one of the lecture videos from the all new Lyric Lab 1 - Fundamentals.

*** CHECK OUT ALL THE LABS ***

FREE PROGRESSION HANDOUT

NEED SOME FEEDBACK?

Have you written a musical? Are you working on one? NMI has smart, professional, detailed dramaturges who will help you make sure you are on the strongest path to fulfilling the promise of your work. From video and audio feedback packages to one-on-one dramaturgical sessions, we have what you need to take the next step forward. We even have an annual contest that results in a workshop and concert reading in Los Angeles.

"We really did appreciate all your help - you’ve got just the right tone to critique. It’s a matter of 'A Spoonful of Sugar Helps The Medicine Go Down'!”
~~George Stiles
(Mary Poppins, Honk, Soho Cinders)

*** Check out NMI's Feedback options ***

MUSICAL THEATRE ARCHIVES

Here's a sample of items from our vault of historical photos, and musical theatre trivia about events that happened THIS month in the past:

October 29, 1891 Fanny Brice, the star of a dozen editions of The Ziegfeld Follies, brilliant comedienne, and inspiration for Funny Girl, was born today.
October 16, 1925 Angela Lansbury, musical star of Mame, Anyone Can Whistle, Gypsy, The King and I, Dear World, Sweeney Todd, and others, was born today.
October 14, 1930 The Gershwins’ Girl Crazy opened on Broadway, making a star of Ethel Merman, who stopped the show cold with “I Got Rhythm”.

*** Click to access the full archives. ***

INSIDER TIPS AND ADVICE

Here is one of our videos with insider tips and advice:

*** VIEW MORE INSIDER TIPS AND ADVICE VIDEOS ***

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Here are some samples from our Glossary of definitions of musical theatre terms. We will be adding to this over time - as well as adding actual sample scores and sound recordings. Check back often!

Writing a Musical:
by Richard Andrews. London, Robert Hale, 1998.
A cappella:
Singing which is without any accompaniment.
Neighbor exposition:
Information exchanged between characters who know one another. Compare to stranger exposition (below). The concept here is that characters who already know each other often can’t be used to deliver backstory/exposition, because they already know this information and wouldn’t explain it to each other. Two people who know one another don’t have to reiterate information which they both know. You don’t have to say to your father, “Hey, Dad, have you heard from my sister Stella, your youngest daughter?” or “Dad, we’re having a Fourth of July party to celebrate the Fourt of July, which is a national holiday which falls on the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the signing of America’s Declaration of Independence.”
ASCAP:
A service organization which collects and distributes royalties on behalf of songwriters in film, television, theatre, etc. www.ascap.org
Page numbers — paginating integrated script and score:
A screen capture of a session integrating script and score and adding running page numbers. This video demonstrates using Acrobat, but the principles of pagination would apply to any pdf integration program.

*** Click to access the full glossary. ***

Ed Wynn, circa 1920’s. From the Musical Theatre History collection of the Library of Congress.

A secretary is not a toy.

--Frank Loesser