Mike Joins The BMI Musical Theatre Workshop

This fall, Mike was accepted into the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City. After playing two tracks from the CD of “Lotus Blooming in a Sea of Fire” (“Kiss the Earth” and “Rain”), Mike joined the workshop as a composer, which has enabled him to work with a variety of extremely talented lyricists.

The workshop takes a learning-by-doing approach. The moderator of the workshop gives an assignment; each team writes and performs their song and receives highly constructive criticism from the rest of the class. Following are Mike’s BMI songs to date:

Assignment #1:

Write a song in AABA form with the following content: Someone is telling a person they love them. The beloved doesn’t realize what they are being told, but the audience does.

Result:

“On the Side,” with lyrics by Jeremy Desmon. A song from a salad delivery boy to a ravishing older woman, Mrs. Merriweather, to whom he delivers salads on a daily basis. He notes repeatedly that he has carefully placed the dressing “on the side,” just the way she likes it, and ultimately urges her to call him if she would like anything else “on the side.”

Genius.

The music is upbeat, with a smooth funk/R&B flavor. Lyrics came before music.

Reactions:

A chorus of "ahhh!"’s at the final “on the side” twist. Genius. Not really a true AABA song…but it works. Everyone enjoyed The Funk. A highly favorable response overall.

Assignment #2:

Write a song for Blanche du Bois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” at the end of the famous “STELLAAAAAHHHH!!!!” scene.

Result:

“Stella,” with lyrics by Emily Jenkins.

Blanche sings to her sister Stella after Stella has returned to Stanley in spite of his violent outburst against her. The song reveals Blanche’s tortured combination of protectiveness, reproach, and envy toward her sister. The music is a ballad in AABA form, very sweet and melodic. Music came before lyrics.

Reactions:

Some missed accents in the text-music relationship. In writing music first, I had composed a series of very short phrases, which, as I learned, are very difficult to write lyrics for. The music is very nice, the lyrics are very nice, but the two don’ seem quite on the same page, some said. This was a tough assignment. We learned about both the joys and the hardships of collaboration.

Assignment #3:

Write a song for “It’s a Wonderful Life”—any character, any scene.

Result:

“Have a Cigar,” with lyrics by Bill Nabel.

Sung by Henry Potter when he is trying to convince George Bailey to work for him. The music is a bossa nova in 32-bar AABA form.

Reactions:

Since it’s a pretty straight 32-bar song, some people thought it was too short. Additional choruses would help build Potter’s slimeyness and also give George more time to go from being ecstatic to hostile.

And that final moment of George’s rejection needs to be bigger (here it was a couple lines of spoken text at the end of the song).

As expected, it was pointed out that bossa nova wasn’t invented until about ten years after "It’s a Wonderful Life" came out. It was suggested by some that another Latin form be found, though others pointed out that the song was not required to be period-specific. The seductiveness of the music was well received, and generally deemed suitable for Henry’s pitch to George.

This song, unlike the first two, will be rewritten.