I’m finally starting to release some clips from my 2019 original musical “Pray Away”. This song “No More Musical Theater” is a turning point in the musical where it quickly switches from a comedy to a tragedy. This is the last of the “fun and games” moments in the script as we follow the journey of two boys going through gay conversion therapy.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more PTGA clips and other music video projects I’m working on at: https://www.youtube.com/@ConradAskland

NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER

When I was researching gay conversion therapy while writing the musical “Pray Away”, I came across an actual note from therapists in gay conversion therapy that said patients should avoid musical theater. So of course I knew right away that I had to create a big number about this. I compiled all the tropes and stereotypes I could think of from my experience in working on musical theater shows. This song started at 4 minutes, then 5, then 6 – until eventually I had about 12 minutes of material. I cut it down to the best (in my opinion) 8 minutes.

During pre-production it was often suggested that I cut this song down, but I loved it so much and really wanted it to stay intact in full – so here it is. “No More Musical Theater” is the second song of Act Two. It’s main purpose is simply to delight the audience. My musical Pray the Gay Away is an emotional rollercoaster with many emotional trigger points for audiences. After this song, the story takes a very dark turn that is an emotionally charged experience for audience members. This song is a final “feel good” moment for the audience before they experience the upcoming darkness (tragedy) together.

My whole mission in creating the musical Pray Away was to bring awareness of gay conversion therapy to a mainstream audience. Most people I talk to have heard of gay conversion therapy but really had no understanding of its practices or affects. This musical aims to change that, and to change hearts. It is my most reverent hope that this musical will be brought to a wider audience. I do think this is a musical that can change the world.

– Conrad Askland, April 2024

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ABOUT THE MUSICAL PRAY THE GAY AWAY

Pray the Gay Away, this highly anticipated and controversial live stage show packs plenty of blissful sacrilege and politically incorrect mischief into a reflection of U.S. culture that is humorous, beautiful, shocking, sweet, thought-provoking and incredibly heart-breaking.

For his fourth full-length musical, Conrad Askland has trained his satirical missile system on the cultural, political and theological forces that surround the painful world of gay conversion therapy and the “pray away the gay” movement. This is a big, full-blooded musical with an irreverently comic heart that is also heart-breaking and emotionally charged. Pray the Gay Away pulls up the carpet to expose the underlying U.S. religious, political and cultural attitudes surrounding homosexuality and our understanding of human rights.

LYRICS to NO MORE MUSICAL THEATER

My trigger point to the dirty, sweaty world of homosexuality was…
Musical Theater

It all began with open auditions at the Rosenbaum Children’s Theater for a production of The Reluctant Dragon

It was – a musical
And that musical was – delightful

But in time, Tyler’s theatrical urges began to bulge and swell
My cravings increased
Growing unsatisfied with ensemble roles, I soon yearned to perform in the Sound of Music

At first it was the role of Kurt, then Friedrich
Eventually I obsessed over Julie Andrews and the quintessential role of – Maria

Tell us. How do you solve a problem like Maria?

I said no more musical theater
No more musical theater for me
No more backstage pouts or belting out all my inner dreams
And if I relapse, wear my taps, even just one time
I just have to say NO
That’s why there’s no more musical theater for me

Son, you could be just like him
Change the world to God’s world

There is no more musical theater
No more musical theater for me
Now it’s time to avoid Andrew Lloyd
And inner rhymes of Sondheim

So I’m no longer over the moon
For tech week boom boom in the Green Room
That’s why there’s no absolutely no more musical theater for me
(applause)

No there’s no more musical theater for me

So you’re saying no more Judy Garland?
Ha – Greta was bettah
And no more Barbra Streisand?
I hope she understands

So have you straight up given up speaking in dialogue rhyme?
Yes, I just don’t have the time

Because I’ve lost the passion for verbose verbal mansions
And unscholarly scansion

But the biggest temptation for me was
Those overdone Cockney accents

Top of the morni’ governor
Have a bloomin’ raspberry tart will ya?
Now you got no trouble and strife today for your Tom and Dick
It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve

Now who don’t love a nice strong cock-ney accent

That’s why there’s no more musical theater for me

And no Recitative – Recitative

Is universally hated by everyone except old Queens who like Gilbert and Sullivan

Never again – No – No – No

Unless of course, the recitative comes right before the dream sequence

No! Save us from the dream sequence…

Muaha ha ha ha! Muaha ha ha ha!

Well hello Erik Jacobsen
How do you know my name?
I am omniscient

Oh it’s only a dream Erik
You can do anything you want in a dream
Politics – Religion – ooh Lutefisk!
And no one will ever know
You could rob a bank – No
You could vote for a woman to be a minister – Ugh No
You could master the dark art of musical theater – Noo!

Surrender Dorothy – there is no resisting Satan’s secret diabolical weapon
Satan’s secret weapon is a tap dance chorus line

Tap dancing is fun
Come on you know you like it
Join us just for one
Join us – Join us – Join us
Gosh darn it – okay
Tyler Noooo!

(Tap Dance)

There is no more musical theater
No more musical theater for him
It’s a burial for Ariel with Tevye and Tiny Tim
No more torch songs with feather boas
The only arc I study now is Noah – Noah’s Ark

Now it’s a total breakdown of money notes
Disney quotes and those octave jumps

Satan get behind me

No more mugging and chewing the scenery
Or dreaming of sugar-plum weinery
So goodbye Phantom, goodbye Forum
Goodbye Fiddler, Goodbye Hair

Musical theater well I don’t care!
Theater will only get your heart broken
While pushing you toward the love unspoken

So hello to my King
And goodbye to my Queen

Judy Garland you are dead to me
Goodbye Satan
Goodbye Barbra

No Barbra I didn’t mean it, please forgive me

No, don’t cry for me Minnesota

Hear my cry O Lord
And set my demons free

Goodbye Satan and musical theater

Time to tell musical theater good-bye-ee-aye-ee-aye

(Applause)

No More Musical Theater © 2019 Conrad Askland

SONDHEIM THREE RULES

1 Content Dictates Form

2 Less Is More

3 God is in the Details

All in the services of CLARITY, without which nothing else matters.

In the seven promps that hang in my writing room, these three short rules by Sondheim are the ones that I put that most importance on. “Less Is More” can be simply interpreted as “Don’t Do What You Don’t Have To Do”, or don’t write what doesn’t need to be written. “God Is In the Details” can be simply put as “Do your homework, work hard and uncover every needed nuance and needed detail.” But for me, “Content Dictates Form” is the one that keeps coming back to alternately reward me and slap me in the face.

“Content Dictates Form” is the rule that I keep discovering over and over again. Let me share with you the mistakes and successes I have had with this rule.

Every time I have broken this rule in musical theater, I have paid a price. And invariably when I listen to new musicals from first time musical theater writers, they break this rule in spades. A fairly good scene will all of a sudden have a song that breaks the listener out of the story and you can totally see the writer saying, “Hey, we should have a funny uptempo song here” or “This is the perfect place for a heart-felt ballad of inner dialogue.” It rarely works when you pidgeon-hole formulas into a script like that. The writers really need to first identify what has to be said. It’s a painful process but necessary for organic flow to keep the audience engaged (in my experience).

MISTAKES I’ve made with “Content Dictates Form”

1. In the writing of my first musical, I would have vague concepts for a song and then I would wait until I heard a song that inspired the style and feel for that piece. Then I would write the piece in that style. The mistake I made was in waiting for the FORM to inspire the CONTENT. Inevitably these songs seemed awesome at the time, but they failed to engage an audience at a gut emotional level. Audiences as a group are very smart and they can sense when something is not authentic.
2.  How many of you writer’s have thought this: “I love the musical Hamilton and I want to write a musical in that style.” (Yes, I raise my hand too). The inherent problem with this approach is that you are letting FORM dictate the CONTENT. Better to identify the story you want to tell and the identify the best style, or form, to tell that story.
3. Again back to my first musical: I recorded the soundtrack into Ableton Live which in itself was amazing and went very smooth. The problem was that I had access to such a large sound library that I ended up with wildly different orchestrations which resulted in wildly different song forms. I would switch from Classical Early Music with recorder to full hip-hop raps to full club dance beat arrangements. The result was entertaining in one aspect, but it switched the world of the musical landscape around too much which then also changed approach to lyrics. In other words, I wrote most of the musical with a focus on FORM and let that dictate the content. In my latest musical I focused squarely on content and then the form came naturally from that. I experience a big difference in how the material resonated with the audience. The approach of Content Dictates Form was much more powerful for the audience.

SUCCESSES I’ve had with “Content Dictates Form”

1. I have a particular song in a musical that needs to be created. I dig deep into what needs to be said in the song, what sort of character sings the song, the other contingencies the song needs to express and THEN I look at what the best style, or form, would be to express those things. Every time I have created a musical theater song that really landed with an audience, it was done in this way. In short, figure out WHAT you need to say before you decide HOW you’re going to say it.
2. I now will say NO to most projects that focus on form before content. It’s usually a sign that the creators have skipped the painful, and necessary, step of digging deep into WHAT they are trying to say. I count this as a “success” because it saves me precious time to not be involved with a project where the co-creators are skipping the most important steps of discovery.
3. In my experience, you can’t really know what a literary work is about until you’ve written some of it. This counts not just for musical theatre but also for fiction and even biopics. For that reason, I’m not sure you can really identify the form until you already into the creation and discovery process. You don’t really know what you’re writing about until you start getting it written down. Only so much can be dreamt or thought about before the actual writing work begins. So for that reason, I currently won’t bother with thinking about form until I start to flesh out a new project. The beauty is that this process clears the forest and makes the landscape a clear slate to strictly serve the content. As always, easy to say but surprisingly difficult to do.

There’s a great podcast interview that goes into depth on Sondheim’s rule of “Content Dictates Form” and even takes the concept further into how we can apply the concept to our everyday lives. The interview is at:

https://thelongandtheshortpodcast.com/5-content-dictates-form#:~:text=In%20any%20case%2C%20Stephen%20Sondheim,output%20his%20extraordinary%2C%20genius%20work.

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A couple of these books I’ve had for many years but most of these I read in 2018-2019 in preparation for my fourth original musical. This latest musical was widely considered by audience members to be my strongest musical theater work yet. I put the credit to many factors, but mostly it came down to really, really hard work and understanding the content in these books at a gut level.

I judge my theater works on a few metrics which includes tickets sold and how many standing ovations each show received. I don’t count it as a standing ovation unless it’s a full audience “O” within ten seconds of the final number. To me that’s a true “O”. So here’s ticket sales and standing “O”s from my first four musicals and you’ll see that there was a big improvement with the study of these books and their implementation into the latest musical and script.

Conrad Askland musicals:

Musical #1 (2012)
Tickets Sold: 2200
Standing Ovations: 0/10

Musical #2 (2013)
Tickets Sold: 2500
Standing Ovations: 7/10

Musical #3 (2015)
Tickets Sold: 1250
Standing Ovations: 3/10

Musical #4 (2019)
Tickets Sold: 4,000
Standing Ovations: 10/10

The books listed below are mainly focused on the craft of writing. I have additional books on orchestration and of course we all study the orchestra and conductor scores of famous musicals. It’s a lot of work to go through all these books but for me it was worth every minute to experience the end result of a show that landed very strong with audiences.

MY CURRENT REFERENCE BOOKS FOR MUSICAL THEATER WRITING

Comedy Writing Self-Taught Workbook – Gene Perret and Linda Perret

Dialogue – Kempton

Dialogue – Rober McKee

Narrative, Identity and the Map of Cultural Policy – Constance DeVereaux and Martin Griffin

How NOT to Write a Screenplay – Flinn

Words with Music – Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto – Lehman Engel

Sondheim on Music – Mark Horowitz

The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters – Iglesias

The Musical Theatre Writer’s Survival Guide – Spencer

Understanding Show, Don’t Tell – Hardy

The Writer’s Journey – Vogler

Conflict and Suspense – James Scott Bell

Finishing the Hat – Stephen Sondheim

Playwriting Seminars 2.0 – Richard Toscan

Steering the Craft – Ursula Le Guin

How Musicals Work – Julian Woolford

The American Musical Theater – Engel

The Making of Musical Theater – Engel

The Secret Life of the American Musical – Jack Viertel

The Art of Dramatic Writing – Lajos Egri

Writing Without Boundaries – Pattison

The Art of Script Editing – Karol Griffiths

Creating Character Arcs – K.M. Weiland

A Practical Handbook for the Actor – Melissa Bruder, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeleine Olnek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previto, Scott Zigler

The Elements of Style – Strunk and White

Three Uses of the Knife – David Mamet

The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Dialogue – Hough

How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method – Randy Ingermanson

Songwriting Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure – Pat Pattison

Outlining Your Novel – K.M. Weiland

Songwriting Essential Guide to Rhyming – Pat Pattison

The Comic Toolbox – Vorhaus

True and False – David Mamet

Writing Better Lyrics – Pat Pattison

Script Analysis – Thomas

Popular Lyric Writing – Andrea Stolpe

The Art of Character – David Corbett

How Music Works – David Byrne

The Dramatists’s Toolkit – Jeffrey Sweet

Stein on Writing – Sol Stein

Behind Bars – Definitive Guide to Music Notation – Elaine Gould

The Anatomy of Story – John Truby

Creative Courage – Wiley

I am very honored to be included in the book Music Direction for the Stage: A View from the Podium, by Joseph Church and published by Oxford University Press. This textbook also includes a forward by Alan Menken.

Lots of great information and tips for aspiring music directors and those that want to dig deeper into the craft of what it takes to bring a show to stage. The old days of just waving a stick are fast fading. Many of us that work as music directors now multi-task in computer editing and file management, sound design and live improvisation with a wide variety of sound textures. I love the blends of technology with old school conducting and this book covers it very well.

“If you’re interested in the world of musical theater, I know you’ll enjoy and learn from Joe Church’s, Music Direction For The Stage: A View From the Podium.”–Alan Menken

I’m included around page 100 or so conducting AIDA at McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon, WA 2006. The photo shows the pit setup – a standard pit with around 8 players as I conducted from the center with a multi-keyboard setup. A dedicated piano, dedicated B3 organ clone, a synth and a controller linked to custom Kontakt patches and sound effects.

This 10-part series takes an in-depth look at the process of bringing Shrek to Broadway through interviews with the Tony Award-winning creative team and cast, behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive content.