The Perfect Line - A New Musical

Hey guys!

I'm new to this forum so here's something I've been working on recently ...

The Perfect Line is a musical I wrote between May and November 2017. It's a story about young writer in 1960s who wants to pursue his dream of becoming a famous poet but when he moves to New York City, he instantly falls in love with a wrong person and has to deal with other, more serious problems. I absolutely adore music of Bernstein and Sondheim (but also have a thing for contemporary musical theatre) so they were obviously a huge inspiration and influence while writing this score. I use classical forms (such as chaconne, rondo, sonata form in overture) as well as simple song forms there, try to combine interesting harmonies and rhythms with accessible melodies/overall musical language.

I wrote both book/lyrics and music, and it was orchestrated for full orchestra only for the premiere performance, normally it would be for smaller ensemble. Also, all the roles are sung by actors, not classically trained singers - they're not always rhythmically exactly accurate and that's not even what I wanted them to do. I believe that MT is mainly about acting, not about singing (at least not the way opera is).

I attach few songs from it with the vocal-piano score.

Any feedback is appreciated! :)

Audio: 

Here's in the slightly lower audio quality the Overture from the musical! :)

Nice experience listening to this.

I think the orchestrarion is beautiful. I also love Bernstein and Sondheim..., some spots remind me of them: the marimba -I think it's a marimba- in the overture, also the third piece (More and More and More).

I understand what you say about singers / actors. They do it well, I like the voice of the tenor. Although I also understand the vocal writing must not be complicated, didn't you consider some vocal harmony in the duet (not singing at the octave all the time)?

Best.

37 minutes ago, Luis Hernández said:

I understand what you say about singers / actors. They do it well, I like the voice of the tenor. Although I also understand the vocal writing must not be complicated, didn't you consider some vocal harmony in the duet (not singing at the octave all the time)?

 

 

In some other parts, there actually is counterpoint between voices but this scene is different in its staging.

In this duet, there's literally a wall between the two performers - and each of them is singing to different person (therefore there are four people on the stage in that moment). The similarity between their musical lines is meant as similarity of their situations. In the first version of this song, I tried for them to have different parts but it was too hard to make it sound well because of the staging and many things happening at once. And I think I kind of like it more this way even though it wasn't how I meant it at first ... :)

Thank you!

OK, Hope the best with your musical, I think it deserves it.

This is very nice! I love the colours of the orchestration.