Honing in on the Auditory Elements of Your Musical Theatre Offering

Imagine performing your next theatrical offering for audience members who are completely blind.

How can you best serve this audience? Naturally, your primary option would be sound. Forget about the choreography and blocking – it’s the dialogue, lyrics, and music that you must hone in on in order to convey a compelling story. 

This is exactly how we suggest you prepare every production for every audience – first, as if they cannot hear, then, as if they cannot see. Isolate each sensory element. 

We’ve addressed visual elements in our previous 2 blogs…

• 3 Ways to Enhance Visual Storytelling in Your Next Production

• 3 Ways to Maintain Audience Attention with Visual Variety 

This blog is devoted to the auditory elements of production. We’ll hone in on 3 areas of preparation: 

1. Warming Up Your Students for Healthy Speaking and Singing

2. Memorizing Lines and Lyrics

3. Employing Vocal Variety and Musicality to Enhance Storytelling

Warming Up Your Students for Healthy Speaking and Singing

• Physical (stretching arms and torso, roll shoulders, etc.)

• Vocalization (lip trills, singing through a straw, sirens, etc.)

• Articulation (tongue twisters, exaggerated speaking, etc.)

Memorizing Lines and Lyrics

• Encourage your students to learn the melody without the words. Have them do this one phrase at a time on dummy words (i.e. "La la la...").

• As if it’s a monologue, have your students memorize and practice the lyrics without the music.

• Give your students an off-book deadline, and consider making this part of their grade.

• If you opt for sheet music and a live accompanist, then we suggest you encourage your students to record each music rehearsal on their phones, so that they’re able to go back, reference, and learn on their own time. 

• Use vocal demos. FBSM provides this resource – a recording with the vocalist and a recording without the vocalist – with every product that involves singing. Here’s one of our favorites: 

"More Than We Can See" from COMPARING CHRISTMAS

Employing Vocal Variety and Musicality to Enhance Storytelling

• Vocal variety in the dialogue and the lyrics. Even if you’re doing a straight play you can experiment with the pace of speech (fast or slow), the register of speech (high or low), and the tone of speech.

• Intonation. In rehearsal, have your students watch each others’ mouths while singing a phrase of the song. Something about this visual helps people to quickly match vowel shape. As I’m sure most of you are already aware, matching vowel shape greatly improves intonation. 

• Cutoffs. Get your students counting the beats. Clarify where the cutoffs are. Beat 3? Beat 4? The downbeat of the next measure? Is the cutoff a shadow vowel? (“Sound” vs. “Soun-duh”) Whatever cutoff decisions you land on, make sure they remain consistent throughout the work. 

• Dynamics! Encourage your students to give themselves somewhere to go. Forte (loud) means nothing if the whole song has already been living at mezzo forte (moderately loud). On the contrary, a sudden jump from pianissimo (very soft) to fortissimo (very loud)? Subito Fortissimo! Now that’s something that will stand out to your audience. 

• Clarify which characters sound staccato (clipped) and which are legato (lyrical). Clarify the use of staccato and legato within the story as well.

• Acting. If your actors connect to the lyric or the line, then your audiences will connect as well. Specific acting leads to specific speaking and singing.

Of course, this work we’re doing is not all about sound. Rich, memorable productions reach the audience through the eyes, ears, and ultimately, the heart. Whether it’s the auditory elements or the visual elements, we’re here to help as you isolate the work of each area. We believe your careful attention and hard work will culminate in a truly impactful production that your students and your community will never forget. 

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*Blog edits by James Dawson Fobes