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re: Still, ask Marsha Norman.

Posted by: ryhog 09:49 am EST 01/16/15
In reply to: re: Still, ask Marsha Norman. - Ann 08:49 am EST 01/16/15

I think you can be lazy just as easily with an original story as with an adapted one. Laziness finds its owner.

There is a school of thought that there are no original stories, just more obscure ones. But I think the truth is, you can come up with a story for a musical on a lazy afternoon and if you want to persist in your laziness, you can build a whole show on the "work" you did. And if we give too much credit for coming up with a supposedly original story, we (a) discredit much of the musical theatre canon and (b) suppress an evaluation of the quality of the original story, viz. If/Then or The Last Ship, with both of which I think it is fair to say most people had book issues.


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re: Still, ask Marsha Norman.

Posted by: lowwriter 12:30 pm EST 01/16/15
In reply to: re: Still, ask Marsha Norman. - ryhog 09:49 am EST 01/16/15

Well, Norman may be working as hard as possible on her books for musicals, they aren't very good.


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re: Still, ask Marsha Norman.

Posted by: JohnPopa 12:57 pm EST 01/16/15
In reply to: re: Still, ask Marsha Norman. - lowwriter 12:30 pm EST 01/16/15

Which is the difficulty in judging or trying to guess intent vs. quality. I try to never say someone didn't work hard, I just say I didn't like the result!


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re: Still, ask Marsha Norman.

Posted by: ryhog 02:20 pm EST 01/16/15
In reply to: re: Still, ask Marsha Norman. - JohnPopa 12:57 pm EST 01/16/15

I think there are shows where the laziness is easily discernible.

I think there are shows in which prodigious effort is displayed and the result still comes up short.

People sometimes post great praise here for hard workers. But at the level we are usually talking about here, hard work is not enough; it is about talent for which hard work is not a substitute. You cannot make yourself funny by hard work, you cannot write a song people want to hear by hard work, etc. That doesn't mean you don't have to work hard because you have talent, but it does mean that (as you say) there is a disconnect between intent and quality.


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