Make a Jukebox Musical to Stimulate Your Creativity
For those who don’t know, a jukebox musical is a musical that consists mainly of already released music from an artist, or even multiple artists. Perhaps the most popular jukebox musicals that comes to mind are“Mamma Mia!” (ABBA) and “Jersey Boys.”
There are several jukebox style musicals that have made headway over the years, from “American Idiot” (Green Day), to “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” to the recent “Escape to Margaritaville” (Jimmy Buffet), to the upcoming “Jagged Little Pill” (Alanis Morissette).
While jukebox musicals range in popularity, there is a continual kind of disrespect for them from some people who say they aren’t inspired. These people believe that because the songs aren’t original, that the musical is somewhat less than. Now, it does take more work to produce entirely original songs, but that doesn’t mean a jukebox musical would be worse than an original musical. (We can probably all think of original musicals that are just…not very good.)
It takes creativity and vision to turn various unrelated songs into a flowing story. So what’s the point I’m trying to make?
You can do this as an exercise for your creativity.
Now, you don’t have to write an entire musical. That would take too long to just be an exercise. What you have to do, is just create an overall story. So let’s go through the steps.
Step One
Pick an artist.
To start, you will want to pick just one music artist to pull from their discography. It would be beneficial to pick an artist that has a larger discography, as opposed to someone with maybe only one album.
Step Two
Do a Little Research
Listen to their songs. Look up the artist or group and see why they make music. This may help you form a storyline.
Step Three
Piece Together the Songs
Once you have thought about the songs you might want to use and the story line you want to make, start piecing it all together. Focusing on the opener and closer of Act 1 and Act 2. Create a story with the songs. Have fun with it. The lyrics of the song don’t always have to fit perfectly.
Step Four
Fill in the Gaps
Maybe your entire story isn’t told through song. Figure out what happens in between each of the songs you use.
Step Five
Listen to Your Jukebox Musical!
Once you have a solid story together, put your songs in order on a playlist, and listen to it! Congrats! You’ve made the outlines to a jukebox musical!
This is just a fun exercise you can do in your free time to stimulate your creative juices. Maybe the story you create inspires you to write it sans music. Maybe this gives you ideas about a different story you’re writing. Maybe you get so gung-ho about your creation that you actually want to produce the musical, and then you can actually write the script.
Who knows! Whatever the case, I’m sure this would be fun and helpful for some people. So get writing!
