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By viewing this documentary, students explore Broadway’s history from the vaudeville shows and operettas of the early 20th century to 21st-century extravaganzas such as Hairspray and Wicked. In this lesson, students will view, discuss, and reflect on Episode 5: “Tradition.” The main question students will answer after each episode is “How do musicals reflect the changing times?”

By viewing this documentary, students explore Broadway’s history from the vaudeville shows and operettas of the early 20th century to 21st-century extravaganzas such as Hairspray and Wicked. In this lesson, students will view, discuss, and reflect on Episode 6: “Putting it Together.” The main question students will answer after each episode is “How do musicals reflect the changing times?”

In Part 2 of this unit, students will research the influence of a musical theatre topic, show, or individual in the past and present. Students will apply their knowledge by creating, designing, and presenting a musical theatre museum exhibit.

Students will showcase what they have learned about their musical theatre topic in a museum exhibit. Students will also learn about additional musical theatre topics by viewing other exhibits and answering questions found in the Museum Exhibit Questionnaire Document/Book (see Materials)

This lesson focuses specifically on the technical aspects of vocal production. By understanding how voice is created, students will be more aware of how to improve their vocal production. Students will revisit posture and breathing exercises as well as how to use the diaphragm, projection, and the resonators.

In this lesson, students will review what basic music theory they have learned and look at rhythm with time signatures and the length of time we hold notes and rests.

This lesson continues the focus on the technical aspects of vocal production. By understanding how voice is created, students will be more aware of how to improve their vocal production. Students will explore the articulators and apply everything they have learned about vocal production to sing a song. Decide if this song will be done for assessment.

This lesson continues with basic music theory and reading basic musical markings on a score. It’s up to you if you feel it necessary for students to learn this aspect of reading music. It all depends on your goals for the unit. Understanding musical dynamic markings will help students navigate a song, and that they can do this even if they do not read music.

Knowing the mechanics of singing a song is only half the process of preparing a piece to perform. In this lesson, students will dissect the musical interpretation of a song using key music terminology and actor interpretation to understand musical tactics and how a musical theatre song can be used to communicate character, story, and emotion. Students will then apply these same tools to use musical tactics as they sing “Happy Birthday” to achieve an objective.

Students will find the context and meaning of a song by dissecting its lyrics. Students will practice finding meaning in lyrics and applying possible tactics to its performance in monologue form.

Students will choose, learn, analyze, rehearse, and perform a musical theatre piece as a solo, as a pair, or in groups. As this may be the first time that they take all these steps to prepare a piece of music, the assessment will come from a place of risk, courage, and commitment, rather than how well they execute the song vocally. Students must also demonstrate learned elements from throughout the unit in their written work and performance. Any movement students add is their own choice, but not necessary. That element will be added to the assessment of performances after the movement unit.

As we begin our character development work in connection to musical theatre, students will watch a musical and use a variety of character development techniques to study a character within that musical. They will identify a plot diagram for the musical, identify key characters and relationships, identify the social conditions, create a visual character profile for a specific character, identify specific emotions for that character, and complete an interpretation statement.

Singing is acting. And at the crux of any performance, whether it be singing or acting, is emotion. There are many different tools for an actor to communicate their character’s emotions as an actor. The key is finding out which tools also work in a singing context. Students will determine effective ways of communicating the character’s emotions in a way that will not hinder their use of proper posture and breathing.

Students are going to take everything they’ve learned (internal and external tools, interpretation statements, and textual analysis) and apply it to a new song. Students will choose a song, complete an analysis of that song, and perform it. Students will be assessed on how well they incorporate what they have learned into their performances.

This movement unit starts with basic movement and focus games. Students will play a number of games that highlight not only physical movement, but the entire class moving and focusing together, as is sometimes necessary in a musical theatre number.

In this lesson, students will explore being comfortable with their bodies by participating in a mindful meditation body scan and learning a calming breathing count and a muscle tightening and release meditation.

In this lesson, students will explore being comfortable with their bodies by going through yoga exercises that support posture.

In Lessons 4 and 5, students will explore a couple of different movement techniques. In this lesson, students will learn Laban’s eight efforts to give more variety, texture, and richness to their movement choices.

In this lesson, students will explore Viewpoints, a technique used to help students understand their own physicality and create dynamic moments of theatre by simply existing on the stage. In this lesson students will participate in exercises for two Viewpoints: time and shape.

In this lesson, we’ll focus on how characters “move.” We’ll start by discussing and analyzing three specific clips demonstrating how to combine character with choreography; learn some specific character choices when it comes to movement, such as levels, walks, and emotional bodies; and end up with a character physicalization presentation in which students have to present a character’s personality and have them move to music.