In this segment of the Showbiz U discussion, industry professionals (Sue Frost, Randy Adams, Tim Kashani) explain what they look for when reviewing scripts, music, and other materials from emerging talent. They emphasize the need for something fresh and surprising that can still resonate with contemporary audiences, while also being commercially viable. The conversation highlights the scarcity of strong musical book writers, describing the book as the most undervalued yet essential element of a musical. They discuss the difficulty of crafting a concise, story‑driven book that works in tandem with lyrics and music, and the collaborative, self‑less mindset required among writers, lyricists, and composers to create a successful show.
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You've got a young aspiring talent or team of talent. They send you a script, music, whatever they send with it. What are you looking for?
I'm always looking for something that grabs me. I mean, whether it's the music or the book or whatever, I'm looking for something that is new and I haven't heard it before, or it's just a fresh voice on something, or is something that something done in a way I haven't seen. I mean, I'm always looking for the new. I mean, that's what's interesting to me. After all these years and all these shows and all the time you go to the theater, I still look for that show or that experience that still knocks my socks off like it did originally, you know? I mean, that's what we're looking for.
Isn't that what theater is supposed to be? Surprise me.
I'm really focused, I'm story-focused. It has to be a good story. And it has to resonate with me in some way, shape, or form. And I have to believe that even if it's a historical drama, that there's something relevant to an audience today. And that's kind of what I get excited about. And I totally agree with something new, something you haven't heard before. But it's also, again, If your intent is to produce it commercially, you have to feel that it's got the potential to reach a lot of people. If the story is too small, if it's just too weird or too idiosyncratic, as much as you might love the work, if you're looking at it for commercial production sometimes, you know, and you try not to talk yourself into something that you love, you know, and we all do it. And we continue to do it. I mean, we've got this one project, the music is fantastic. It's fantastic, it's like nothing you've ever heard before. But the, you know, the building the story and all of that has been a real challenge. But we're getting there, we're getting there, we're making progress. But in no way, shape, or form is this going to be easy. But we do believe that because of the music and because of what this story is trying to tell, it could be a really exciting property if we can get it done.
And do you see that as fairly common that a lot of these shows— and one of the things we see too is universities turn out a lot of musicians, composers, lyricists, but there's not as much on the book.
Yeah, it's too bad. Yeah, you know, there just aren't as many great book writers. I mean, it's hard. It's a really difficult thing to do.
Really difficult. And you know what, I can tell— I've read so much stuff, and I was telling somebody this the other day— I can tell from a synopsis, if you can write the book to a musical. Because if your synopsis is 4 pages long, you should not be writing the book of a musical. It's too long. It's too long. There's no economy in your language if it takes you that long to tell me what this show is. So it's— and I have to say, I think it's absolutely the most undervalued element, and it's the hardest thing to find, is somebody who can write a good book but also adapt their storytelling to the music, and it's always— you have to be kind of selfless. You have to give the words to the lyricist. You have to give the emotion to the composer, you know? But if you don't do it, then you don't have a great show.
Yeah, you lead it to, you know, those folks, but you can't tell us what those are before you get to those folks.
