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Not all musical productions need to have expensive, lavish sets and costumes. Some can be very simply staged and performed very effectively on a low budget. In the best musicals it is the songs and story that are the stars.

Because musicals demand so much suspension of disbelief anyway (who really breaks into song when a lover leaves them?) it’s not necessary to use much scenery to denote location. The set can be painted in a stylised way to suggest many locations and provide a generic base for all the action onstage.

Performing in a musical

In a musical there are leads and members of the chorus. The lead actors play the main characters, responsible for delivering the narrative. The chorus support the action with singing and dancing and usually work together as an ensemble. Some may have small, cameo roles.

The style of acting is usually different to most dramatic theatre, where the audience are very much on the outside of events. In Musical theatre there is more of a sense onstage of acknowledging the audience. Dialogue and action are directed and angled outwards for their benefit. Musical theatre is non-naturalistic by the very convention of bursting into song.

Characterisation is usually larger and less subtle than in dramatic theatre. Interaction with the audience may take place by way of eye contact, facial expression, gestures or direct address. However, main roles often need to be rounded characters that we can believe in, but this depends on the musical.

The whole cast together is called the company. Company numbers (songs) involve everybody and tend to reflect the themes of the piece. Solo songs are used as a dramatic device for the audience to understand more about a character’s emotions at a given point in the story.

It’s said of Musical theatre, When the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing, when it becomes too strong for song, you dance.